Analysis of 5G-TSN Integration to Support Industry 4.0

Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) is becoming the standard Ethernet-based technology for converged networks of Industry 4.0 due to its capacity to support deterministic latency requirements. However, it cannot provide the required flexibility to support mobile industrial applications required for the factories of the future. This could be enabled through the integration of wireless technologies in factories, and in particular of 5G and Beyond networks since they have been designed to support ultra-reliable and low-latency communications. This has triggered significant interest to integrate 5G and TSN networks, and first frameworks for such integration have been defined. However, the work is at early stages and the solutions to effectively integrate the two networks so that 5G can support TSN QoS levels are yet to be designed. This paper discusses current research and standardization work on 5G-TSN integration, and quantifies for a closed loop control application the 5GS bridge delay. The paper uses an example based on 5G-ACIA [1] to discuss open technical and research challenges to effectively integrate 5G and TSN.