@phdthesis{Dietrich2021, author = {Dietrich, Steven}, title = {Methods of evaluation and improvement on cascaded wired and wireless real-time communication networks for factory automation}, doi = {10.26127/BTUOpen-5483}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:co1-opus4-54833}, school = {BTU Cottbus - Senftenberg}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Factory automation applications require a communication system that concurrently supports them with determinism, reliability, short communication cycles, and precise synchronization as well as mobility and extensibility. However, neither currently employed wired nor available wireless communication networks support all of these requirements at once. On the one hand, wired networks lack mobility and extensibility. On the other hand, wireless networks do not support reliability or determinism due to the stochastic nature of wireless channels. Moreover, none of the available wireless networks enable transmission latencies of 1 ms and below. Therefore, they cannot support the required short communication cycles. However, various research initiatives and the currently developed 5G standard promise to overcome these limitations at least partially. Nevertheless, even a corresponding wireless network will not directly replace all wired connections, but will initially be used for subsections of the data transmission, where e.g. mobility is of utmost importance. Accordingly, cascaded communication networks consisting of hierarchically ordered, wired and wireless subnetworks will emerge. In this thesis, we investigate effects and dependencies of such a cascading for the real-time communication of factory automation applications. Therefore, we have to find methods to interconnect arbitrary wired and wireless communication networks such that we can maintain the reliable real-time performance of wired subnetworks and the mobility of wireless subnetworks without, or at most with minimal performance degradation. Ideally, with a cascaded network, no hardware or software adjustments will be necessary compared to the individual networks deployed today. Based on a delimiting review of different application areas and a dedicated use case analysis of typical factory automation applications, we derive the most challenging requirements that have to be fulfilled by cascaded communication networks. According to this review, we present several methods to reduce the overall transmission latency in cascaded networks. Starting with analyzing different interface concepts and continuing with frame conversion methods, we achieve a decision-making basis to select dedicated subnetworks for a cascaded network that can be used for closed-loop control applications. Additionally, we develop methods to optimize the parametrization of individual subnetworks with respect to the overall communication, such that the end-to-end transmission latency can be drastically reduced. For verification, we design a generic model for analyzing the timing behavior of arbitrary communication networks and verify it based on an analysis of a machine tool application scenario. Additional measurements based on a real demonstrator implementation corroborate that, in industrial application, cascaded communication networks can provide competitive performance compared to the currently used wired networks.}, subject = {Cascaded networks; Factory automation; Real-time communication; Kaskadiertes Netzwerk; Fabrikautomatisierung; Echtzeitkommunikation; Telekommunikationsnetz; Echtzeitverarbeitung; Automatisierung}, language = {en} }