In the future, Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) or its substandards will make it possible to supplement traditional Ethernet with real-time features, even at high data transfer rates up to the gigabyte range. In addition to real-time capability and determinism, TSN offers other tremendous technical advantages.

Emerging Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) standards can be applied to EtherNet/IP networks to provide improved determinism and performance. It has always relied upon standard, commercially available Ethernet technologies to deliver deterministic performance and is well-positioned to leverage emerging standards.

Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) offers network convergence, and will enable effective implementations of Internet of Things applications. New solutions for TSN allow seamless implementation of deterministic Ethernet networks and abstract user equipment and applications from the technical complexities.

Test results concluded that only IEEE802.1Qbv can guarantee end-to-end, ultra-low jitter as required by highly deterministic industrial automation applications. The challenge is an appropriate configuration approach (fully distributed, centralized or fully centralized) for Industrial Ethernet networks using TSN.

Is three too many? Or can we benefit from the interplay of OPC UA, Profinet and TSN? All offer individual strengths and weaknesses, and applications will be diverse using these technologies for Industry 4.0 / IIoT networks. And customers will choose the application protocol that best meets their individual requirements.