Operational Impacts of IEEE 802.1Qbv Scheduling on a Collaborative Robotic Scenario

Published

October 17, 2022

Author(s)

Rick Candell, Karl Montgomery, Mohamed Hany, Susruth Sudhakaran, Justin Albrecht, Dave Cavalcanti

Abstract

Time-sensitive networking (TSN) is an emerging topic for the advancement of wireless networking for industrial applications. TSN, as defined under the umbrella of IEEE 802.1 standards, addresses issues related to providing deterministic communications over IEEE 802-based Local Area Networks (LANs). TSN was originally designed to support real-time audio/video applications over Ethernet providing better reliability and lower, more deterministic latency with traffic shaping capabilities. TSN has since expanded its scope and applicability to other applications such as those in industrial environments and automotive. Industrial examples include machine-machine communications for robot control, end-effector actuation, real-time sensing, and safety integrated systems. Applications utilizing an wireless local area network (WLAN) can also benefit from scheduling and traffic shaping as defined in the 802.11Qbv standard; however, factors such as clock stability, synchronization, resource requirements and protocol options come into play when selecting a schedule to support multiple application types on the same network. In this article, we present a scenario for a collaborative robot heavy lift operation, in which, two robots communicate over an IEEE 802.11 WLAN with TSN capabilities to lift a rigid body in three dimensions. Scheduling is performed using 802.1Qbv over WLAN with the robot operating system (ROS) used as the software middleware utilizing the transport control protocol (TCP). As a part of the research, we describe our process for schedule selection to accommodate the time-sensitive traffic of the robotic scenario while allowing an industrial internet of things (IIoT) high data rate traffic to coexist. We then provide an analysis of the impacts of TSN schedule selection on the operational performance of the collaborative robot application.

Proceedings Title

48th Annual Conference of the Industrial Electronics Society IECON 2022 Conference

Conference Dates

October 17-20, 2022

Conference Location

Brussels, BE

Pub Type

Conferences

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1109/IECON49645.2022.9968494

Local Download

Keywords

Wireless, TSN, factory communications, IEEE 802.11, IEEE 802.1Qbv, WLAN

Citation

Candell, R. , Montgomery, K. , Hany, M. , Sudhakaran, S. , Albrecht, J. and Cavalcanti, D. (2022), Operational Impacts of IEEE 802.1Qbv Scheduling on a Collaborative Robotic Scenario, 48th Annual Conference of the Industrial Electronics Society IECON 2022 Conference, Brussels, BE, [online], https://doi.org/10.1109/IECON49645.2022.9968494, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=935097 (Accessed October 11, 2024)