Network redundancy is a fundamental aspect of every industrial network. 1+1 redundancy mechanisms provide means to seamlessly protect networks against any single link or node failure. With the Parallel Redundancy Protocol (PRP), each node is attached to two separated Ethernet networks. The sending node duplicates all traffic and sends it over both networks, whereas the receiving node de-duplicates the traffic and only passes the first packet version to its applications. Motivated by the increasing use of Linux on embedded and server platforms in industrial automation systems, we evaluate and analyze the performance of Linux-based PRP. We investigate the impact of delay asymmetry and partial packet loss on the performance of PRP. We show that in recent Linux kernel versions PRP is prone to packet loss under special network conditions. Finally, we compare the performance of Linux-based PRP with hardware-based Redundancy Boxs (RedBoxs). Our results show, that in contrast to Linux-based PRP, RedBox-based PRP with the Hirschmann RSPE35 is not prone to packet loss under special network conditions.

By expanding beyond broadband capabilities of commercial mobile networks and providing novel connectivity features for a wide variety of industry verticals, 5G is becoming a key enabler for the digitalization of industry. However, unlike consumer market where users have very similar communication needs, industrial environments require direct control of security and performance aspects of an underlying networking infrastructure to achieve high communication availability and determinism for a broad range of applications and services. Similarly, it is vital to continuously monitor and verify the connectivity status and performance of devices, especially for mission-critical industrial systems. This paper investigates how to achieve fundamental management capabilities for 5G networks from industrial automation systems, which we refer to as "5G Managed from Industrial Automation", while hiding "low-level" complexities of the technology. It presents a simplified 5G network management and monitoring solution, designed according to the functional requirements of a process control system, and based on a prototype of 5G system exposure capabilities. In addition, the paper presents details about the design and implementation of the 5G management solution in an ABB industrial automation system and its verification on a private 5G network offered by Ericsson.

A steadily growing number of factories, plants, mines and ports around the world are exploring the potential of 5G technology and considering how best to deploy it. This is to be expected, since 5G has been designed with vertical use cases in mind, and industrial automation systems are one of the most promising segments.

Losgröße Eins - die kosteneffiziente Herstellung von individualisierten, einzigartigen Produkten - war von Anfang an das Markenzeichen von Industrie 4.0. Bei Busch-Jaeger in Lüdenscheid haben wir eine Produktionslinie aufgebaut, in der ein individualisiertes Endprodukt für die intelligente Raumsteuerung in der Gebäudeautomation versandfertig vom Band läuft. In weniger als einem Jahr wurden mehrere zehntausend Produkte nach individuellem Kundenauftrag gefertigt und ausgeliefert, und das Werk wurde mit dem Industrie 4.0 Award 2019 ausgezeichnet. Im Hinblick auf die Anwendungsszenarien von Industrie 4.0 betreiben wir eine wandlungsfähige Fabrik, in der die Produktion auftragsgesteuert abläuft und tief in B2C- und B2B-Prozesse integriert ist, in der sich Materiallogistik selbst organisiert und in der menschliche Bediener leicht mit Maschinen interagieren können. Der Bau dieser Produktionslinie war nur durch einen fertigungsorientierten Front-End-Designprozess möglich, bei dem zunächst ein digitaler Zwilling der gesamten Produktionslinie in OPC UA definiert und erst dann die mechanische und elektrische Konstruktion gestartet wurde. Um eine Fabrik auf diese Weise effizient zu gestalten, gibt es jedoch keine ausreichenden Standards und Werkzeuge für ein nahtloses digitales Engineering; plug-and-produce-fähige Maschinen können nicht einfach von der Stange bestellt werden; auch ist die Einhaltung höchster Qualitätsansprüche für einzigartige Produkte eine eigene Herausforderung. Darüber hinaus beginnen Kunden, eine Individualisierung zu fordern, die nicht allein durch Neukonfiguration bestehender Maschinenfähigkeiten erreicht werden kann, sondern die eine kontinuierliche Umgestaltung der laufenden Maschinen im Hinblick auf das erfordert, was wir eine " Evergreen Factory " nennen. In diesem Papier stellen wir die Bausteine und besten Praktiken für die Planung, den Bau und den Betrieb einer solchen automatisierten Produktion in Losgröße Eins vor. Darüber hinaus zeigen wir die Lücken und Herausforderungen auf, mit denen Fabrikbetreiber, Maschinenbauer und Systemintegratoren gegen Ende des ersten Jahrzehnts von Industrie 4.0 noch immer konfrontiert werden. Wir schließen mit Erwartungen, wie diese Lücken geschlossen werden können, einschließlich der Rolle der Industrie 4.0 Verwaltungsschale.

The role of sensors and sensing concepts is reviewed and reflected in the context of digitalization , particularly of large automation systems. Process industries have been chosen as an example and starting point. Large-scale market driving forces are elaborated and a scenario for the proliferation of innovative sensors in process industries is proposed. Detailed requirements for future sensor systems are derived, both functional and non-functional, e.g. regarding communication capabilities and power supply. Examples of recent instrumentation developments are given, as well as several use cases for innovative sensing solutions. New communication options for integrating the sensors in automation systems are reviewed. Finally, specific 5G-related opportunities for new sensor applications are discussed.

Lot-size one has been the hallmark application of Industry 4.0. At Busch-Jaeger in Ludenscheid, we have built a production line for such an individualized smart home product. We operate an adaptable factory, where production is order-controlled and deeply integrated with B2C and B2B processes. Material logistics are self-organizing, and human operators easily interact with machines based on digital twins realized in OPC UA. In this article, we present the building blocks and best practices for designing, building, and operating such an automated lot-size one production.

This article refers to the implementation of an aggregating OPC UA Server with extended functions and its practical application.

This chapter discusses the German-driven initiative Industrie 4.0 and addresses some commonalities and differences. It suggests possible synergies and shows how Smart Manufacturing and Industrie 4.0 activities can support and complement each other. It also reviews some applications within Industrie 4.0 and summarizes the development roadmap.

We describe the importance of sensors and sensing concepts for digitalization of large automation systems. Process industries have been adopted as a starting point. Two recent developments in temperature sensing are given as examples for sensor innovations with a potentially strong impact. Non-invasive and model-based sensing have been identified as trends. Advanced concepts for power supply and communication of sensors are discussed. An attempt is made to identify and interpret recent component developments, standards and systematic ideas, which may be relevant for large sensor systems in many areas.

The increasing demand for highly customized products, as well as flexible production lines, can be seen as trigger for the “fourth industrial revolution”, referred to as “Industrie 4.0”. Current systems usually rely on wire-line technologies to connect sensors and actuators. To enable a higher flexibility such as moving robots or drones, these connections need to be replaced by wireless technologies in the future. Furthermore, this facilitates the renewal of brownfield deployments to address Industrie 4.0 requirements. This paper proposes representative use cases, which have been examined in the German Tactile Internet 4.0 (TACNET 4.0) research project. In order to analyze these use cases, this paper identifies the main challenges and requirements of communication networks in Industrie 4.0 and discusses the applicability of 5th generation wireless communication systems (5G).

A main goal of the fourth industrial revolution is changeability of production processes, which is the ability to react efficiently to unplanned production changes. Existing automation system architectures limit this changeability. PLC programs used for automation include low-level behavior of actuators, strategies, management functions without information hiding. This yields unmaintainable, and therefore hard to change systems. In this paper, we document our Virtual Automation Bus that enables changeable production.

A key-enabler for the self-organization of production systems proclaimed by the Industrie 4.0 is a standardized core service system. This requires a certain degree of interoperability between participants of the service system that allows to perform Plug and Produce on top of it. The main expectations regarding such as service system are therefore to allow for easy discovery as well as machine readable semantics of data. The service architecture serves as basis for implementing the Administration Shell as well as Industrie 4.0 compliant communication. The underlying service architecture needs to describe the static base structure of data (the Industrie 4.0 Information Meta-Model), the interactive access interfaces for browsing and modifying data (the Industrie 4.0 Information Services) as well as addressing services within their service system. Based on this architecture high-level services for organizing the actual production and handling of products (the Industrie 4.0 Application Services), as well as the self-organization of resources and assets in the automation system (the Industrie 4.0 Platform Services) can be created in a technology-independent and interoperable way.

The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) faces a fragmentation of interfaces along information modeling formats, communication protocols and service interfaces. This increasingly hinders interoperability and changeability in the IIoT. To overcome this challenge, we propose a technology-independent common core for information modeling in the IIoT. It consists of a minimal type system for literal data values, an addressing and identification scheme based on Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI), the use of both key-value associations and relational references to combine resource-oriented and semantic information modeling, and a set of core relational predicates for object-oriented information modeling. Exemplary mappings of popular IIoT information modeling formats are provided to demonstrate the generality and representational power of the proposed common core.

Managing the complexity of industrial communication infrastructures from field to enterprise level, satisfying the needs of horizontal and vertical applications, has been an increasing challenge over the last decades. The Industrial Internet of Things as a next step will interconnect the Industrial Intranets within companies, wrapping the multitude of existing fieldbus technologies and Industrial Ethernet behind a shared, IP-converged network infrastructure. At this point, we find existing technologies, tools, and management concepts in the automation domain to be insufficient to yield the flexibility and sustainability needed to deploy and maintain mission-critical network infrastructure over decades. In this paper, we focus on how to orchestrate the data transport functionality of an Industrial Intranet including both IP and heritage protocols, wired and wireless technologies. To this end, we propose a reference model for communication management to use in automation systems. Particular network design practices, protocol performance, operational data forwarding, or the semantics of communicated data are out of scope. The objective of the reference model is to serve as a basis for further research and standardization in Industrial loT networks.

Die bei Industrie 4.0 angestrebte Selbstorganisation der Produktion wird im Wesentlichen ermöglicht durch ein im Kern normiertes Dienstesystem. Dieses benötigt dabei einen Grad von Interoperabilität zwischen Dienstesystemteilnehmern, der tatsächlich Plug-and-produce ermöglicht. Die Haupterwartungen an ein solches Dienstesystem liegen beim einfachen Auffinden (Erforschungsmechanismen) und Verstehen von Daten (maschinenlesbare Semantik). Die Dienstearchitektur, die dieser Beitrag behandelt, dient sowohl als Basis für die Implementierung der Verwaltungsschale, als auch der Industrie-4.0-konformen Kommunikation. Die zugrundeliegende Dienstearchitektur beschreibt dabei die statische Grundstruktur der Daten (das Industrie-4.0-Informations-Meta-Modell), die interaktiven Zugriffsschnittstellen zur Erforschung und Änderung der Daten (die Industrie-4.0-Informations-Dienste) sowie die Adressierung von Diensten in einem Dienstesystem. Auf Basis dieser Architektur können höherwertige Dienste zur Organisation der Produktion und Handhabung der Produkte (die Industrie-4.0-Anwendungsdienste), aber ebenso zur Selbstverwaltung der Ressourcen/Assets des Automatisierungssystems (Industrie-4.0-Plattformdienste) technologieunabhängig und interoperabel erstellt werden.