Huawei Sets Up New Milestone for Edge Computing With OPC UA Over TSN Testbed

Providing advanced edge computing technology for industrial digitalization

[Hannover, Germany, April 15, 2019] At Hannover Messe 2019, Huawei presented the Edge Computing OPC Unified Architecture (UA) over Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) testbed for Smart Factory, together with its well-known 30+ industry partners. The testbed is dedicated to providing edge computing technology stacks like OPC UA over TSN in manufacturing and other industrial markets to ensure that industrial needs and requirements are best addressed through members’ products. The members include Alliance of Industrial Internet (AII), Avnu Alliance, ECC, Edge Computing Consortium Europe (ECCE), Fraunhofer FOKUS, SmartFactory KL, DFKI, Schneider Electric, Haier, HollySys, National Instruments (NI), B&R, TTTech, Spirent Communications, and others.

OPC UA over TSN as a critical edge computing connectivity and communication technology stack can provide a real-time, deterministic and truly open interconnected communication network to meet the high security, high bandwidth, and high reliability requirements of industrial infrastructure. Huawei TSN solution in the testbed provides high reliability and ultra-low latency industrial network managed by SDN generic controller. A proprietary TSN scheduling algorithm optimizes TSN network utilization and greatly simplifies the challenge of TSN implementation through management tools with multiple analytic models and simulation platforms.

The testbed also provides other edge computing technology components such as predictive maintenance, data analysis, and virtualization of industrial control. Plans are in place to introduce Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the future to achieve key features like edge intelligence and edge-cloud collaboration to provide a complete edge computing technology solution for the market.

“Edge Computing is a key technology for achieving a digitalized, networked, and intelligent society. Huawei will work with companies in Europe and around the world, together with related industries and standardization organizations to promote the implementation of edge computing technology components like OPC UA over TSN, and also cooperate with partners to provide advanced edge computing solutions that help enlarge the potential market,” said Charles Sheridan, Director of the Huawei Munich Applied Network Research Lab.

EC OPC UA over TSN testbed includes 33 partners

Huawei is also actively involved in other edge computing related organizational activities and technical practices. Huawei’s TSN solution provides a new network infrastructure for SmartFactory KL. A similar setup is also integrated in the Haier demo production line.

“TSN makes an important contribution to both horizontal and vertical integration. Additionally, TSN — in combination with OPC UA — facilitates manufacturer independence at the data transmission level. This means multiple sensors and actuators can send and receive data in real time while ensuring that existing plants can be flexibly upgraded. The proprietary field bus of the past is no longer an issue,” said Prof. Dr.-Ing. Detlef Zühlke, Chairman of the Board of SmartFactory-KL.

Huawei also participated in the foundation of ECCE in Europe. “The ECCE aims at saving research and development efforts by providing technology stacks for edge nodes based on existing, matched components to small, medium, and large enterprises for the rising edge computing market in smart manufacturing and other industrial IoT domains,” said Dr.-Ing. Alexander Willner, head of IIOT Center at Fraunhofer FOKUS.