Schneider Electric and Huawei demonstrate the first TSN-based OPC UA test bed in China

During the 2019 Huawei Connect Conference held in Shanghai, Schneider Electric joined hands with Huawei to demonstrate the TSN-based OPC UA (time-sensitive network-based industrial communication protocol) test bed for smart factories for the first time in China. As an important part of the test bed, Schneider Electric Modicon M580 PLC is used to test the network performance of the OPC UA protocol based on TSN and the overall improvement of the equipment operation performance.

The test bed is designed to provide a platform environment for testing, verification and innovation, such as TSN switches, edge computing gateways, etc., for open interconnected networks and edge computing infrastructures based on TSN’s OPC UA in manufacturing and other industrial markets, ensuring the products of industry partners. and solutions to better meet market demands.

The test bed is currently the only international TSN-based OPC UA test bed in China. It is jointly built by 35 companies and institutions with global influence, including Edge Computing Industry Alliance (ECC), Huawei, Schneider Electric, etc. Schneider Electric continues to support open, standards-based support. Through the open EcoStruxure architecture and the integration of OPC UA, a unified communication standard can be used to achieve interconnection and interoperability from the field, edge control layer to the cloud, bringing the convenience and value of open, high-speed communication to machine manufacturers and end users.

Edge computing TSN-based OPC UA test bed showcased at HUAWEI Connectivity 2019

OPC UA based on TSN is the most important innovative technology in the current industrial Internet field. By providing a real-time open and interconnected communication network, it meets the needs of industrial production safety, deterministic delay and high reliability, and makes up for the shortcomings of traditional real-time industrial Ethernet in ease of use, interoperability, and bandwidth. At the same time, through a more intelligent and efficient network, the manufacturing industry can share the resources, data, models and methods in the fields of big data, mobile Internet, artificial intelligence, etc., which is to realize the transformation and upgrading of the industry, promote intelligent manufacturing, and enhance the digitalization of manufacturing industry. The key technology of networking and intelligence level. Taking Huawei’s TSN (Time Sensitive Network) solution as an example, it provides a highly reliable and ultra-low latency industrial control network that supports SDN unified network management, and cooperates with a proprietary TSN scheduling algorithm to optimize TSN network utilization; and The implementation of TSN is greatly simplified through management tools with multiple analysis models and simulation platforms.

The test bed also provides other key applications, such as predictive maintenance, data analysis, virtualization of industrial control, etc. It will introduce artificial intelligence technology to improve the two key features of edge intelligence and edge-cloud collaboration, providing a complete basis for the market. Advanced industrial digitization solutions for edge computing.

Schneider Electric is a core member of the OPC UA Foundation, and the industrial Ethernet technology of OPC UA and TSN is also the main direction of Schneider Electric’s current strategy. In order to ensure the consistency of the protocol and the integrity of the ecosystem, Schneider Electric and Huawei have jointly built a test bed to test the network performance of TSN-based OPC UA and the overall improvement of device performance.