Future industrial networks in process automation: Goals, challenges, and future directionsShow others and affiliations
2021 (English)In: Applied Sciences, E-ISSN 2076-3417, Vol. 11, no 8, article id 3345Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
There are many initiatives and technologies working towards implementing factories of the future. One consensus is that the classical hierarchical automation system design needs to be flattened while supporting the functionality of both Operation Technology (OT) and Information Technology (IT) within the same network infrastructure. To achieve the goal of IT/OT convergence in process automation, an evolutionary transition is preferred. Challenges are foreseen during the transition, mainly caused by the traditional automation architecture, and the main challenge is to identify the gap between the current and future network architectures. To address the challenges, in this paper, we describe one desired future scenario for process automation and carry out traffic measurements from a pulp and paper mill. The measured traffic is further analyzed, which reveals representative traffic characteristics in the process automation. Finally, the key challenges and future directions towards a system architecture for factories of the future are presented.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
MDPI AG , 2021. Vol. 11, no 8, article id 3345
Keywords [en]
Industrial network, IT/OT convergence, Process automation, Time-sensitive networking
National Category
Communication Systems
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:mdh:diva-54048DOI: 10.3390/app11083345ISI: 000643999900001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85104205149OAI: oai:DiVA.org:mdh-54048DiVA, id: diva2:1548672
2021-05-032021-05-032022-11-09Bibliographically approved