Bringing Time-Sensitive Networking to Wireless Professional Private Networks Filling Gaps and Bridging the Innovation

Abstract

Private professional environments such as manufacturing industry, warehouses, hospitals, airports, among others, increasingly rely on end-to-end connected solutions to support and to improve their daily operational performance. This comes with a demand for real-time and deterministic communication, without evading the flexibility offered by wireless communication. Currently, wireless networks are lacking time-sensitive networking (TSN) features, making them only suitable for non-time-critical communication. To support end-to-end wireless-wired deterministic communication in these private professional environments, it is necessary to introduce TSN features to the wireless network segments. In this paper, we list a number of considerations that have to be addressed before such communication may become a reality, including accurate time synchronization and fine-grained scheduling. Based on these considerations, we present a proof-of-concept realization of a TSN-capable Wi-Fi system, which enables end-to-end wireless-wired deterministic communication.