Ethernet has been serving network operators well for nearly three decades, and while it has certainly developed a great deal over the years, its most “revolutionary” evolutionary jump is emerging right this minute. The new technology enhancement is called “Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN).” Although its strong value-adding functions are still being proved out (very successfully!) in testbed and demo networks, real-world network operators can begin benefitting from the technology right away.

With Industry 4.0 came the next generation of factory automation. This technology was aimed at improving the efficiency of factories with automated machines that operated on fast-moving production lines. But now, with more and more data needing to be transferred across increasingly burdened Ethernet networks, the information can be become slowed or delayed. The results? Less efficient operations and, ultimately, less output – outcomes completely counterintuitive to the original goals. TSN has been developed to overcome these challenges, but it can also be used within a transportation environment to great effect.

Time-sensitive networking (TSN) is a very hot topic in the industrial world. You’ve probably read numerous articles on the new standard over the past several months, all of which likely tout the revolutionary nature of the real-time communication and determinism that the framework provides. While the benefits are clear, what isn’t being discussed is that the configuration of TSN mechanisms such as the time-aware scheduler and its reservation of timeslots for Ethernet frames can require a great deal of configuration to get right.

As demand for mass transit increases in densely populated urban areas, so do passenger demands for more entertainment, on-time delivery and safety. The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and impending technologies like Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) are making this possible. TSN is a novel technology, currently in development at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), that offers an entirely new level of determinism in standard IEEE 802.1 and IEEE 802.3 Ethernet networks. Standardizing Ethernet networks with TSN will deliver an important capability: deterministic, time-critical packet delivery.