The pyramid model has served us well in automation for many years - but it has now run its course!" Wolfgang Schenk opened the international TSN/A Conference in Stuttgart with this thesis in his keynote speech and continued: "We now need much more flexible models and standards for communication in automation." The Managing Director of Hirschmann Automation and Control is convinced that the pyramid model is now being replaced by an automation pillar. However, this pillar requires a "high-speed backbone with low latency and zero probability of error." Schenk sees the communication technology for this backbone in Time Sensitive Networking - TSN for short: "The TSN standard is ready to go," he encourages the audience to get to grips with the technology: "Standardization has progressed so far that you can work on it. It is a vendor-neutral standard and it is a standard that is backwards-compatible with existing Ethernet networks, making it the ideal brownfield scenario for all existing fieldbus protocols to immediately jump on and communicate over it.

No need to wait any longer

On the second day of the conference, Stefan Schönegger, Business Unit Manager Open Automation at B&R, follows on from Schenk's words and brings another buzzword into the discussion. In his opinion, the combination of TSN plus OPC UA in particular will change the structures of industrial automation technology. In his keynote speech, he outlines B&R's roadmap in this regard. Schönegger points out that there is still some homework to be done to ensure a broad market launch - "A one-stop store for OPC UA TSN conformance tests, for example." But in general, both OPC UA and TSN have reached a level of maturity that will allow automation providers to launch corresponding products on the market in 2018.

TSN is particularly appealing because this real-time Ethernet technology is not only being used in automation, but is also likely to be widely adopted. In her keynote speech, Dr. Kristen Matheus from BMW stated that "12 of the 16 largest car manufacturers have concrete plans to integrate TSN technology into their vehicles." The most important area of application here is likely to be driver assistance, as it is particularly time and safety-critical.

In addition to the keynote speeches with their overview character, the other presentations got down to the nitty-gritty. In particular, the lecture track on IEEE activities dealt with fundamental, important aspects: From time synchronization of hardwired and wireless connections, to latency issues of the IEEE 802.1 standard, reliability and redundancy topics, to configuration and resource management.

The TSN/A Conference took place for the first time in this form on September 20 and 21. It is the continuation of the German Industrial Ethernet TSN conference organized by WEKA FACHMEDIEN and the international TSNA conference organized by the AVNU Alliance and highlights the TSN aspects of industrial automation, the automotive industry and the consumer world in particular.

Next year's TSN/A Conference will take place on September 26/27, also in Germany.