The Avnu Alliance, CC-Link Partner Association, ODVA, OPC Foundation and PROFIBUS & PROFINET International jointly announce that they are collaborating to develop a single conformance test plan for the IEEE/IEC 60802 Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) profile for the industrial automation. The test plan will be used as a baseline test by all participating organizations and made available to the entire industrial automation ecosystem. This collaboration contributes to end-user confidence that 60802-compliant devices from different manufacturers that support different automation protocols will reliably coexist at the TSN level on shared networks, including with devices using TSN for applications other than automation.
The goal of the collaboration is to work together on a jointly agreed and owned test plan for the industrial automation market. This formal collaboration provides value by creating a structure in which all these organizations can work together and exchange ideas towards the end goal of interoperability and coexistence on open and standard networks for all protocols, without the need for establish a separate formal organization. For convenience, collaborative activities will be referred to as “TIACC” (TSN Industrial Automation Conformance Collaboration).
The TIACC marks the commitment of these organizations to develop an interoperable ecosystem of devices from different manufacturers to comply with the IEC/IEEE Standards Association Profile 60802 and enable end users to confidently deploy these devices on open and standard networks. The goal is to have the final version of the single, shared test plan shortly after the publication of the IEC/IEEE 60802 profile.
“Avnu’s goal and mission is to transform standard networks to enable support for many time-sensitive applications and protocols in an open and interoperable way. This collaboration between organizations will be critically important in facilitating the coexistence of multiple workloads and protocols in accordance with the IEEE 60802 standard on a network, while leveraging fundamental network interoperability used across all industries,” said said Greg Schlechter, president of Avnu Alliance. “We are committed to working with industries to enable an interoperable ecosystem of devices that enable end users to confidently deploy across open, standard, and converged networks.”
“Creating the connected industries of the future requires that different systems and devices communicate in order to provide the necessary process transparency. This is a fundamental principle for the CLPA and is at the root of the reason the organization was founded. That’s why we’re excited to be a part of TIACC and look forward to supporting the creation of a common, unified test plan for TSN-enabled products. By doing so, we can help further drive the adoption of scalable technologies for smart manufacturing,” said Manabu Hamaguchi, Global Director of CLPA.
“EtherNet/IP users will be able to experience the benefits offered by the 60802 TSN of improved network performance, higher utilization, and guaranteed network access for multiple critical applications with different priorities.” ODVA’s participation in TIACC will ensure that the full potential of 60802 TSN coexistence is realized by end users to help make Industry 4.0 and IIoT a reality,” said Dr Al Beydoun, President and Executive Director of ODVA.
“OPC UA is a secure, vendor-neutral communications solution that fully scales from the field to the cloud and provides semantic interoperability. Other underlying computing infrastructures such as Ethernet TSN and the IEC/IEEE 60802 TSN profile for industrial automation open up other applications for the market. We believe this compliance collaboration is an important contribution to preparing for and delivering streamlined and efficient compliance testing and certification to the industry in conjunction with other SDOs,” said Stefan Hoppe, President and Executive Director of the OPC Foundation.
“At PI, we take compliance testing very seriously. We believe that thoughtful testing ensures interoperability between vendors. This is why we have invested enormous effort in our test system over the past few years. With this joint initiative, we are taking another step towards converged networks using TSN, giving our users confidence in the future readiness of PROFINET. This collaboration is an important step on the road to digital transformation,” said Karsten Schneider, President of PROFIBUS and PROFINET International (PI).
