Moxa Inc. has announced its Time-sensitive Networking (TSN) solution for factories of the future. Moxa will showcase this framework on a truly unified network infrastructure enabled by its TSN technologies at Smart Production Solutions (SPS) 2019.
The framework integrates devices and protocols, such as CC-Link IE TSN by the CC-Link Partner Association (CLPA) and the OPC UA over TSN initiated by OPC Foundation. Furthermore, Moxa has also actively cooperated with partner companies from each organisation to complete compatibility tests and to bridge devices into an open, interoperable, harmonized environment based on TSN, which facilitates OT/IT network convergence, plug-and-produce manufacturing, and edge intelligence.
“Moxa has been one of the initial supporters of the OPC Foundation Field Level Communications (FLC) initiative, and has been working ambitiously with key players in the automation industry including acontis, B&R, and additionally Moxa is a partner of the CLPA and has been working with one of the key players–Mitsubishi Electric. Our goal is to push innovative technologies, such as TSN, to help ensure that industrial automation applications of the future operate under a truly unified infrastructure,” said Andy Cheng, President of the Strategic Business Unit at Moxa. “We’re thrilled with our live demo that showcases devices from multiple machine providers that use different protocols but are operating on a unified TSN infrastructure. We believe this will be the future for automation applications.”
Based on our collaboration with other leading players in the TSN ecosystem, our solution offers a unified network infrastructure that supports critical and non-critical package transmissions across a converged network. The unified network can also support applications that require high bandwidth, real-time communications, and high levels of determinism and performance e.g. motion control tasks. Thanks to our TSN solution, it is much easier to build a futureproof automation network infrastructure with high flexibility. Furthermore, as the infrastructure is easy to maintain, it allows owners to reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO).
"The unique proposition of the solution is that it enables more flexible industrial network management together with standardized OPC UA over TSN for communications at all levels including controller-to-controller and controller-to-field devices," explained Stefan Bina, Product Manager of Industrial IoT Network Solutions at B&R Industrial Automation GmbH. “Through close collaboration with our partner Moxa, who bring their extensive industrial Ethernet and networking expertise, B&R and Moxa can help ensure that configuration takes place on a truly unified platform, which opens up new and exciting possibilities for factories in the future.”
“In light of the convergence of OT and IT networks, Mitsubishi Electric is implementing CC-Link IE TSN across their Factory Automation portfolio. This will guarantee the quality of services on the OT and IT layer using a standard Ethernet infrastructure and effectively enable the convergence. The collaboration with Moxa on a pioneering TSN unified network infrastructure that integrates our CC-Link IE TSN devices for IIoT communication is strengthening our strategy to enable this convergence." said Hartmut Pütz, President Factory Automation, Mitsubishi Electric Europe.
Furthermore, it is often noted throughout the industry that edge intelligence coupled with real-time networking capabilities is an essential requirement when developing factories of the future as it facilitates edge analytics and edge controllers and optimizes the construction of systems. By collaborating with its partners, Moxa has integrated edge intelligence into this TSN solution.
“Moxa plays an important role connecting all of the devices in a TSN solution, and acontis’ TSN software preserves real-time capability up to the application layer when sending and receiving data from the hardware. The end result of this cooperation is intelligent, deterministic networking at the edge of the network,” explained Stefan Zintgraf, General Manager at acontis technologies GmbH.
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