Communication Systems for Industry 4.0 and the IIoT

The paper discusses the basics of communication systems for open, safe, secure, near real time, standardized communication interfaces and examines the problem of a unified architecture to comply with the principles of Industry 4.0 as applied to enterprises of the future. The first part of the analysis presents Open Platform Communication Unified Architecture (OPC UA), a common SW basis to interconnect communication interfaces and control plus information protocols for the purposes of Industry 4.0. The platform enables readers from different branches of engineering to understand the fundamentals of state-of-the-art open communication, a necessity for further development of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and Industry 4.0 concepts. The following portion of the text then presents the most topical activities within enhancing the real time properties of Internet of Things and Industry 4.0. The basics of Time Sensitive Networks (TSN) are explained and compared with the features and possibilities of standard public networks (the Internet) in relation to the onset of the 4th industrial revolution as outlined in the article. (C) 2018, IFAC (International Federation of Automatic Control) Hosting by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.