Objectives
TIMING targets the design of use cases (e.g., industrial robotics), prototyping and demonstration of end-to-end TSN services in intra and inter -TSN domains. Accurate reference timing delivery and QoS/scheduling enhancements will be investigated. From an end-to-end perspective, TSN services entail the support of operators’ transport networks that are currently carrying traffic from users, business, and datacenter (DC), just to mention a few on a BE basis. Such traffic is commonly encapsulated at Layer 2 for traffic engineering purposes and transmitted over an optical transport network. As soon as operators’ networks provide support to TSN traffic, scheduling and traffic shaping will guarantee the committed QoS of TSN flows and allow for the coexistence of TSN and BE traffic on the same network infrastructure. One problem of providing end-to-end TSN flows is synchronization of multiple administrative domains. Such synchronization requirements can be relaxed by enforcing simple strict-priority selection on selected queues of the time-aware traffic shaper. In addition, TSN and BE traffic coexistence could have a negative impact on the BE traffic, as resources allocated to TSN flows would reduce those available for the former.
Objective 1 (O1): To design, implement, and validate a solution to enable end-to-end reliable TSN services supported by operators’ infrastructures
This objective focuses on architecting solutions to provide reliable TSN services on top of an e2e operator’s network infrastructure. This involves new standards at both the ethernet and wireless segments. Automation and adaptation will be achieved by developing both analytical and ML algorithms. Different use cases will be studied in TIMING, which include: (1) Accurate positioning to support IIoT applications; and (2) Integration of robot applications in wireless and wired TSN networks.
In particular, TIMING will develop and test several robotic applications on a TSN network with edge computing capacities, namely: a) the development of mechanisms to orchestrate communication resources to facilitate robot communications, which are continuously growing when multiple devices must interact; b) the application of wireless to teleoperation which can be clearly enhanced with TSN services. TSN also facilitates the management of sensorial information with visual and haptic feedback which would allow the execution of more complex tasks; c) transmission of high-resolution images over a Wi-Fi network, for remote processing; d) real-time planning for navigation of a mobile platform using a remote server, plus the integration with a remote supervision system for overseeing the robot operation or the factory floor.
Objective 2 (O2): To develop and assess solutions to automate the deployment of end-to-end TSN services with assured performance
Therefore, this objective aims at designing and validating an architecture enabling e2e TSN services, encompassing operator network and TSN-based domains by exploiting SDN technologies. To this purpose, TIMING will embrace the TSN control plane currently under standardization (802.1Qcc) and will augment it to consider wireless and wired TSN and e2e service provisioning.
Predictive-base strategies mechanisms will be designed and deployed to maximize reliability provisioning. In this regard, queue models and ML-based algorithms will be developed, aimed at assuring the performance of TSN services and the impact on other services currently in operation. Indeed, it becomes essential to monitor selected Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) of the services in order to proactively identify situations in which the current quality of services could be negatively affected.
Objective 3 (O3): To support TSN in the wired and wireless segments
The targeted intra-TSN QoS includes: sub-millisecond latencies, extreme-reliability and availability, < 1 ns time synchronization to enable precise indoor positioning, support mixed-criticality applications, and provide the security and safety levels demanded by the applications.
TIMING will analyze the suitability of different topologies leveraging on TSN to ensure proper service levels as demanded by vertical industry applications. Integration with other technologies in operators’ infrastructure (for both control and data plane) will also be analyzed and tested for an overall e2e design. The deployment of high-accuracy timing synchronization links, such as the use of White Rabbit (WR-PTP), which provides sub-nanoseconds timing accuracy without degradation with distance or number of hops, could also be studied in the event that a thorough integration with the carrier switching systems with support for Synchronous Ethernet (SyncE) were to be performed. This could be beneficial for use cases in industrial robotics with networks spanning large geographic areas with a large number of hops.
TIMING will identify the enhancements to be made in wireless segments for supporting the sub-millisecond latency for TSN systems and to develop and assess scheduling solutions to support these enhancements. These wireless enhancements, combined with seamless interoperability between TSN and the wireless solutions, will enable the deployment of large-scale Hybrid (wired-wireless) TSN networks with little commissioning costs and maintenance. In addition, the support of wireless TSN capabilities and the integration of TSN will ease upgrading current wired TSN-based infrastructure to the wireless domain.
Objective 4 (O4): To integrate components and to build PoC demonstrators validating the whole architecture
TIMING will integrate the innovations targeted in the previous objectives and build a PoC designed to showcase a TSN scenario for Industry 4.0. The POC will demonstrate: (1) at the modeling level, a tool that evaluates the performance of the new TSN service to be deployed and the impact on the existing services (TSN and/or BE traffic); (2) at the control plane, the capability to deploy reliable e2e TSN services with committed performance in terms of e2e delay; and (3) at the infrastructure level, the capability to transport TSN traffic between two TSN domains: one with Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) emulating a factory, and the other with the AGV’s controller, which requires bounded latency communications with the AVs; other services for loading the system will be also included.
The PoC not only shows e2e TSN services but also, scalability, reliability, predictability, measurability, and agility, which will be researched and progressed beyond state-of-the-art.
Objective 5 (O5): To maximize TIMING impact by influencing major vendors and service providers on the adoption of the developed principles through communication, dissemination, and standardization activities, to exploit TIMING’s results and knowledge, and contribute to the digital transition of the industry and the green deal.
Influence the telecommunications industry on the adoption of the devised concepts, design methodology, algorithms, and system/node/architectures by means of dissemination, standardization, and exploitation activities, while emphasizing openness and transparency. This includes: (a) scientific dissemination in peer reviewed international conferences, journals, and magazines; (b) contributions to Standards Developing Organizations (SDOs), Open Source Projects and other non-profit network and computing consortia and alliances; (c) actively contributing to and shaping white papers, and co-organization of workshops and events; (d) engagement with on-going and future EU funded projects (e.g., HORIZON EUROPE programme); and (e) education and targeted communication activities of results and technologies.
TIMING will bring about a remarkable impact on the industry, not only because it will support TSN services, but also because it will enable creating distributed industrial clusters, improving the territorial imbalance of the economy, slowing down ecological deterioration of industrial areas, enabling distributed energy production, and others. As part of TIMING Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) management, a Data Management Plan will be prepared and maintained to describe the lifecycle for the data to be collected, processed, and/or generated. Gender equality is also part of TIMING RRI management.
List of KPIs and means of validation per objective
