An evaluation of broadband technologies from an industrial time sensitive networking perspective

Abstract

In industry, mission-critical assignments require special characteristics for their networks. Chief among these requirements is reliability – proven to be even more desired than other characteristics such as low latency. IEEE 802.1 Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) is a set of Ethernet standards that delivers this high level of urgency to guarantee deterministic messaging and Quality of Service (QoS) for such real-time applications. With the progress made in the wireless broadband technology realm, it would be an opportunistic and fruitful venture to port these TSN standards to the wireless use-case. The choice of broadband technology that would fit this exercise best is an important question. The paper aims to evaluate popular broadband technologies, that is Wi-Fi and the cellular technologies of 4G and 5G, to assess those features that are available in their standards to support or implement the TSN technology in an industrial environment. Along with an overview of TSN and its requirements, the paper aims to review these broadband technologies to determine their readiness for time-sensitive networking. With the aid of results collected from iterative network simulation experiments, our work also shows in what ways the immediate wireless technologies need to be specialised for TSN.