Multi-Domain Time-Sensitive Networks - An East-Westbound Protocol for Dynamic TSN-Stream Configuration Across Domains

The requirements on industrial communication networks are changing. They need to offer end-to-end communication changeable on demand. Time-Sensitive Networks (TSN) adds real-time capabilities to Ethernet while providing mechanisms to centrally reconfigure network devices. Today, industrial networks are not connected to each other. Industry 4.0 will require communication across multiple industrial networks. With the help of an east-westbound communication protocol, control-plane instances negotiate the establishment of communication paths across multiple networks. This paper proposes a concept for an east-westbound protocol for TSN networks. It shows a negotiation process for provisioning real-time end-to-end connections over multiple TSN-domains. A prototype and a multi-domain TSN testbed has been implemented which shows the feasibility of the protocol. The performance of the proof-of-concept implementation has been analyzed.