Standards Development

Scope

This standard defines the physical layer (PHY) and medium access control (MAC) sublayer specifications of the deterministic wireless industrial network operating in unlicensed band for the discrete manufacturing that guarantees 250 us bounded end-to-end latency and 125 us cycle time and is capable to be integrated to the wired TSN.

Purpose

The fourth industrial revolution transforms the manufacturing with integrating digital technologies, including Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing and analytics, and AI and machine learning into their production facilities and throughout their operations.

Requirements on the industrial internet of things (IIoT) are categorized depending on the specific industrial scenario. The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) separates into different sections: Discrete Manufacturing, Monitoring and Diagnostics, Motion Control, Process Automation, Condition Monitoring, Augmented Reality, Logistics and Warehouses, and Functional Safety. In discrete manufacturing, machine tools, robots, sensors, and programmable logic controllers (PLCs) exchange small packets with short intervals, which requires low-latency communications. Motion control has more strict latency requirements than general discrete manufacturing. For the discrete manufacturing, currently, wired connections provide highly reliable but costly and physicallyrestrictive connectivity.

Wireless connectivity, however, offers many benefits over wired solutions: lower expenditures and decreased long-term maintenance costs by the elimination of cable, possible to connect in impractical locations, and ease of relocatable and reconfigurable. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) produces wireless user requirements for the factory workcell, which are categorized into six classes: Class 0-Safety, Class 1-Closed Loop Regulatory Control, Class 2-Closed Loop Supervisory Control, Class 3-Open Loop Regulatory Control, Class 4-Condition Monitoring, and Class 5-Logging, Downloading, and Uploading.

For the discrete manufacturing and motion control, wireless industrial networks are required to satisfy the user requirements class 1: for the strict case, 250 us bounded end-to-end latency, 10-7 transmission reliability, and 2,000 Hz update rate. To provide the critical manufacturing application such as robot end-effectors, arc welders, laser cutters, spindle position/velocity control, robot docking/interlocking control, and precise position-based arm control, the deterministic wireless industrial network needs to be defined.

The deterministic synchronized wired networking is based on the IEEE Audio Video Bridging (AVB) /Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) standards. To integrate the wired and wireless time sensitive networking for the discrete manufacturing, deterministic wireless links operating in unlicensed band are required for extending TSN capabilities over wireless network.

This standard specifies the PHY and MAC of the deterministic wireless industrial network (DWIN) operating in unlicensed band for the discrete manufacturing, which extends the TSN capability.