- SmartFactoryKL demonstrates real-time communication (TSN) together with six partners
The Technologie-Initiative SmartFactory KL e.V. and the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), together with the 18 involved partner companies, will present the further development of the Industrie 4.0 production plant in hall 8 / booth D 20 at Hannover Messe from April 24 to April 28, 2017. Also on display is a TSN demonstrator for real-time communication.
For the first time, SmartFactoryKL will present a TSN demonstrator (Sercos® real time protocol over Time Sensitive Networking), which was built with the technological support of six partners from industry and research. It showcases a real-time and multi-protocol network infrastructure on the basis of TSN. The use case shown is the synchronic control of two drives with real-time control data via TSN-Ethernet. Simultaneously, via this TSN network infrastructure, the video streams of a webcam (that could, for example, be used for quality data collection with a machine vision system) are transmitted to a remote display. Real-time communication can be carried out without any disturbances.
„TSN will drastically change the world of industrial networks. We are tackling this topic and will offer a technology demonstration at the Hannover Messe. Once products are available on the market, which we expect to be in the course of 2017, we will expand this technology to our Industrie 4.0 production plant”, stated Prof. Dr.-Ing. Detlef Zühlke, Chairman of the Board of SmartFactoryKL and Director of the Research Department Innovative Factory Systems at DFKI.
The partners of the SmartFactoryKL TSN demonstrator are: Belden/Hirschmann, Bosch Rexroth, Industrielle Steuerungstechnik, TenAsys, ISW (Institute for Control Engineering of Machine Tools and Manufacturing Units) of the University of Stuttgart, and InES (Institute of Embedded Systems) of the Zurich University of Applied Sciences.
The advanced production plant of the SmartFactoryKL partner network
Flexibility, modularity and networks are important aspects in the light of Industrie 4.0. The SmartFactoryKL partner network is focusing on the following topics at Hannover Messe this year:
- Cross-site production: For the first time, the modules are no longer set up in one line but distributed over three production cells. A flexible, autonomous guided vehicle connects the three cells.
- Dynamic safety concept: realized on the basis of an industrial Ethernet-based communication protocol. This new feature allows for an emergency stop function to be implemented flexibly for the first time at the individual production cells, eliminating the need to parameterize the entire system.
- Smart manual workstation: offer improved operator-assistance or make a more flexible interaction between humans and machines possible, thanks to an easy-to-use user interface.
- Improved data exploitation thanks to the further development of IT/OT systems: Now data can be displayed, integrated, transported, and recorded much more easily. Highlights include an IO module, operational data publication via MQTT, two dashboards, and a web-based product configurator.
Partners in the SmartFactoryKL Industrie 4.0 production plant network are: Belden/Hirschmann, Bosch Rexroth, Cisco, EPLAN Software & Service, Festo, HARTING, IBM, iTAC, LAPP KABEL, METTLER TOLEDO, MiniTec, PHOENIX CONTACT, Pilz, proALPHA, TE Connectivity, TÜV SÜD, Weidmüller and Wibu-Systems.
Download photos for this press release here: https://cloud.dfki.de/owncloud/index.php/s/s92VkJHZZDVkxzf