DIVAN: Dienstgüteeigenschaften In Virtual Automation Networks

Industrial Ethernet technologies in their varieties are being widely accepted as plant-wide real-time communication systems and are currently convicted by different user groups in the industrial automation domain. The automation technology will be in the next step developed in the direction of  more geographically distributed sub-processes and systems. So there is an increasing need of the data communication of distributed devices and facilities including public networks.

This future connection of heterogeneous communications networks, consisting of LAN and WAN technologies, is also refers as Virtual Automation Network (VAN). This new situation inevitably requires the integration of IT security mechanisms and components in the automation solutions.
 
In use of public networks, IT-security mechanisms have also significant influence on the service of an end-to-end communication relationship and is highly necessary to be considered. It is still missing so far that a uniformed methodology and approach, which taking all the mentioned aspects into account, to identify and assess application response time based on the data communication. This is where the proposed project comes in.
 
The proposed project focuses on the development in aspects of IT-security, Real-Time Ethernet and heterogeneous IP network environments. Furthermore appropriate metrics for performance evaluation of Quality of Service (QoS) will also be developed. The performance aspect on the relevant network configurations will be evaluated through appropriate models and discrete event simulation.  The models will be validated by accompanied simulation examples through measurements. Especially in the development of evaluation methods the time-optimized transmission protocols (such as Profinet, EtherCAT and Power Link) will be simulated and compared with comparative measurements.

The three research centers with complementary expertise will work effectively for handling of this complex project and thus make the following possible:  
 

• Create a methodological approach for the implementation of QoS measurements.
• Develop valid models for different protocols (such as Profinet, EtherCAT and Power. Link), and design and provide an environment for their simulative performance evaluations.
• Provide assistance for deployment of this systems based on best practice configurations.
• Provide a description of (communication) system dynamics and implement measurements to evaluate the system.