Building a 5G-TSN testbed: architecture and challenges

Abstract

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Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) is one of the best networking technologies currently available for industrial communications, due to its strict Quality-of-Service (QoS) guarantees. TSN defines several mechanisms, where packet schedulers play the most important role. The Time-Aware Shaper (TAS) is the scheduler best suited for industrial scenarios, since it is able to assign periodic timeslots to specific flows, thus ensuring QoS if routing and scheduling are correctly configured by the Software-Defined Networking (SDN)-based TSN control plane. However, TSN is a wire-based technology that lacks the flexibility and mobility provided by wireless technologies such as 5G. This is why 3GPP, starting from Release 16, has defined an architecture for the integration of (typically private) 5G networks and TSN in industrial scenarios. New elements, called TSN Translators (TTs), are needed between the 5G and TSN data planes, and an interface, named TSN Application Function (AF), is defined in 5G to communicate the control planes of both networks. This paper describes the architecture, challenges, and preliminary results obtained from a 5G-TSN network testbed (including TSN equipment and 5G emulators, and an SDN-based control plane).

This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation and the European Union - NextGenerationEU, in the framework of the Recovery Plan, Transformation and Resilience (PRTR) (Call UNICO I+D 5G 2021, ref. number TSI-063000-2021-15– 6GSMART-EZ), and by the Agencia Estatal de Investigación of Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación of Spain under project PID2022-137329OB-C41/ MCIN/ AEI/10.13039/50110001103

Objectius de Desenvolupament Sostenible::9 - Indústria, Innovació i Infraestructura

Objectius de Desenvolupament Sostenible::9 - Indústria, Innovació i Infraestructura::9.4 - Per a 2030, modernitzar les infraestructures i reconvertir les indústries perquè siguin sostenibles, usant els recursos amb més eficàcia i promovent l’adopció de tecnologies i processos industrials nets i racionals ambiental­ment, i aconseguint que tots els països adoptin mesures d’acord amb les capacitats respectives

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