Issue link: https://resources.mouser.com/i/1437657
Industry 4.0 and Beyond | ADI The need for seamless connectivity from every sensor and actuator across the factory floor, even those in remote locations, is not possible with existing infrastructure. Suppose the future is data and its combination at an enterprise level to provide actionable insights. In this case, the challenge becomes finding a way to enable these unprecedented volumes of data to flow without crippling the communication network designed to transmit it. This raises the question of how to architect, build, and deploy an industrial communications network that will meet the needs of today's automation environments and tomorrow's virtual factory floors. Why Industrial Ethernet? With connectivity being central to the Industry 4.0 vision, three things must become a reality to deliver a truly connected enterprise: The higher-level information technology (IT) or enterprise infrastructure must converge with the plant floor-control network. The various networks or manufacturing cells existing on factory floors must all coexist and interoperate. We need seamless, secure connectivity across our process environments, from the edge of the process to the enterprise cloud. To address these challenges, we need to adopt a foundational networking technology that can support interoperability, expandability, and reach. Ethernet emerges as the ideal solution, being a well-understood technology with extensive deployments. Offering high bandwidth and enabling fast commissioning, it is also deployed extensively in the IT infrastructure of all manufacturing environments. However, standard Ethernet is not a viable solution for industrial control infrastructure given the need for real-time operation. Operational technology (OT) control networks need to ensure that the message being communicated is delivered to where it is needed on time. This ensures the correct operation of the task or process at hand. The TCP/IP protocol for routing traffic does not inherently guarantee this level of deterministic performance. In the same way that standard Ethernet enables file-sharing or access to network devices such as printers, Industrial Ethernet allows controllers to access data and send instruction commands from programmable logic controllers (PLCs) to sensors, actuators, and robots dispersed across the factory floor. The key difference is the impact of delayed or undelivered messages. In non-real-time applications, if the webpage is slow to update, the effect is minimal. 5 1 Figure 1: Cloud infrastructure. (Source: Analog Devices Inc.) Figure 2: The merging of two worlds: information technology (IT) and operating technology (OT). 2 Analog Devices Capabilities in Industry 4.0 Applications The Digital Factory of Tomorrow