5G-ACIA White Paper

Integration of 5G with Time-Sensitive

Networking for Industrial Communications

5G Alliance for Connected Industries and Automation

White Paper Integration of 5G with Time-Sensitive Networking for Industrial Communications

1 Table of Contents
2 Executive summary 3

3 Introduction 4

4 Digital transformation as the driver of TSN and 5G connectivity in automation 4

5 TSN standards for industrial automation 7

5.1 Synchronization for time-sensitive applications 7
5.2 Scheduled traffic 8
5.3 Frame preemption 10
5.4 Per-stream filtering and policing 10
5.5 Frame replication and elimination for reliability 10
5.6 TSN for industrial automation 10
5.7 TSN configuration 12

6 TSN in a factory 13
6.1 Typical use cases 13
6.2 Industrial communication requirements 13
6.3 Introduction and use of TSN in industrial scenarios 18
6.3.1 TSN deployments 18
6.3.2 Use of TSN features 23

7 5G support for TSN 24

7.1 5G-TSN bridge model 24
7.2 5G support for TSN time synchronization 26
7.3 5G support for highly reliable communication 28
7.4 TSN traffic handling in a 5GS 29
7.5 5G support for bounded latency 31

8 5G-TSN integration options and validation 32

8.1 Integrated 5G-TSN architecture 32
8.2 Time synchronization in an integrated 5G-TSN architecture 35
8.3 5G-TSN integration for industrial automation use cases 36
8.3.1 Controller-to-controller 36
8.3.2 Device-to-compute 37
8.3.3 Controller-to-device 37
8.3.4 Summary of 5G TSN validation 38

9 Conclusion 40

10 Key terms and definitions 41

11 Acronyms and abbreviations 42

12 References 43

13 5G-ACIA members 46

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 White Paper Integration of 5G with Time-Sensitive Networking for Industrial Communications

2 Executive Summary
Fifth-generation wireless communications (5G) and time-­ About 5G-ACIA
sensitive networking (TSN) technologies are key to future
industrial communications: 5G for wireless connectivity and The 5G Alliance for Connected Industries and Automation
TSN for wired connectivity. Both technologies have been de- (5G-ACIA) was established to serve as the central and glob-
signed to provide converged communication for a wide range al forum for addressing, discussing, and evaluating relevant
of services on a common network infrastructure, including technical, regulatory, and business aspects with respect to 5G
for time-sensitive applications that require deterministic, for the industrial domain.
reliable and low-latency communications. Significant ben-
efits can be achieved for corresponding industrial use cases It reflects the entire ecosystem and all relevant stakeholder
by introducing TSN and 5G wireless communication, e. g., in- groups, including the operational technology (OT) industry
creased flexibility in the deployment of industrial equipment (industrial automation companies, engineering companies,
and the network. pro- duction system manufacturers, end users, etc.), the ICT
industry (chip manufacturers, net- work infrastructure ven-
This paper identifies the requirements of these applications, dors, mobile network operators, etc.), academia, research in-
and describes the functional capabilities needed to seam- stitutes, and other relevant players.
lessly integrate 5G with TSN. The paper also provides brief
overviews of the 5G and TSN functions needed to support The paramount objective of 5G-ACIA is to ensure the best
time-sensitive applications. 3GPP specified 5G support for pos- sible applicability of 5G technology and 5G networks to
TSN in Release 16, with further enhancements in Release 17, the industrial domain. 5G-ACIA’s mission is to make sure the
to allow seamless integration of a 5G system (5GS) with TSN interests and needs of the industrial domain are adequate-
networks. In integrated networks of this type, a 5G system ly considered in 5G standardization and regulation and that
will simply be perceived as IEEE-compliant virtual Ether- ongoing 5G developments are understood by and effectively
net-TSN bridges. transferred to the industrial domain.

This white paper describes and examines integration of 5G

with TSN for typical industrial use cases, namely control-
ler-to-controller, controller-to-device and device-to-compute
communications. The paper shows that 5G, as specified in
Release 16 and 17, provides all functionality needed for inte-
gration with TSN for industrial automation.

IEEE TSN standardization is evolving, and specification of a

TSN profile for industrial automation is currently under devel-
opment. It is important that the 5G standard remains aligned
with this evolution of TSN.

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White Paper Integration of 5G with Time-Sensitive Networking for Industrial Communications

3 Introduction
This white paper looks at the standards specified for 5G by required by a 5GS. The relationship between network slicing
3GPP and the standards specified for TSN by IEEE and de- and 5G integration with TSN is beyond the scope of this paper.
scribes how these two standardized technologies can be inte-
grated for industrial communication. This white paper describes why and how 5G will be applied in
industrial networks together with TSN and what interactions
Time-sensitive networking (TSN) [17] is a set of novel open between 5G and TSN are needed. It takes as its baseline the
standards that provide deterministic, reliable, high-band- 5G specifications in 3GPP Release 16 but also the functional-
width, low-latency communication; it is envisioned as the ity for specification of TSN support that is currently ongoing
future-proof wired technology for convergent industrial com- in Release 17. For TSN, the baseline is the IEEE standards up
munication, e. g., for Industry 4.0 and smart factories. Inter- to 2020. However, the ongoing work in IEC/IEEE 60802 on
working of 5G with TSN is seen as a major objective in order an industrial automation profile for TSN is also considered to
to make 5G suitable for future Industrial Internet of Things some extent.
(IIoT) solutions. 3GPP has performed significant 5G standard-
ization work in this area, i. e., with the introduction of spec- The next section describes drivers for the introduction of TSN
ifications for ultra-reliable and low-latency communication and 5G into industrial automation. Sections 5 and 6 present
(URLLC) from Release 15, and support for TSN in Release 16; IEEE TSN standards and describe how they are applied in fac-
3GPP is continuing this work in Release 17. 5G standardization tory environments. 5G support for TSN is described in section
work for IIoT includes understanding how TSN is applied in 7. Section 8 explains how 5G can be integrated with TSN in an
a smart factory environment, what kind of integration and industrial deployment.
interactions with 5G are envisioned, and what functionality is

4 Digital transformation as the driver of

TSN and 5G connectivity in automation
Digital transformation is creating disruptive change in all sec- ity, enabling mass customization to meet customer require-
tors [24]. By interconnecting multiple devices, information is ments in terms of quantity, quality, design and configuration.
no longer constrained locally but accessible from anywhere.
The fourth industrial revolution will apply digital transforma- These smart production systems rely on enterprise-wide com-
tion to industrial production via enterprise-wide networks to munication. For industrial use cases, these communication
capture data from and to exchange data between machines, networks need to fulfill certain requirements [25]. In particu-
devices and people [25]. By using the Internet of Things (IoT) lar, they must guarantee high availability, high throughput,
and cyber physical systems, conventional production will be real-time transmission, low latency and low jitter. To meet
transformed into a network of smart and interconnected de- these requirements, diverse communication technologies
vices. These systems can improve flexibility, versatility, us- have been introduced, such as fieldbuses, e. g., PROFIBUS,
ability and efficiency of future manufacturing [26]. By using and Ethernet-based solutions such as PROFINET or EtherCAT
larger networks, production cells will evolve into ecosystems [8][9]. Each of these solutions addresses a particular set of
sharing information for enhanced decision-making and re- requirements for specific applications. As a result, they are
source-efficient production. Further, rapid communication only mutually compatible on the physical layer. This results
between devices, factories and suppliers will increase flexibil- in a large variety of protocols and hardware on factory shop

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 White Paper Integration of 5G with Time-Sensitive Networking for Industrial Communications

floors, making the interconnectivity needed for Industry 4.0 advantages of 5G and the corresponding industrial use cases
difficult to achieve. To overcome this issue, the IEEE 802.1 are described in more detail in [1]. As a result, TSN and 5G
TSN Ethernet standard family has been introduced for re- in combination offer wireless and wired solutions capable of
al-time deterministic, enterprise-wide, low-latency industrial creating the large real-time network needed for Industry 4.0
communication. In contrast to existing industrial Ethernet applications.
protocols, TSN is not only compatible with standard IEEE
802.3 Ethernet on the physical layer but also higher layers; Figure 1 illustrates the transformation of industrial networks
furthermore, it is part of the IEEE 802 standards that specify from Industry 3.0 to Industry 4.0. The Industry 3.0 automa-
Ethernet-bridged networks. tion pyramid focused on high throughput and very efficient
machines, including dedicated networks. This was achieved
In addition to the above-mentioned requirements of indus- by engineering the entire production line for very specific
trial use cases, and the need for compatibility, a communi- products with only very little communication with the outside
cation network for Industry 4.0 must also support wireless world. This isolation meant that disruptions on one product
communication for mobile, rotating and flexible objects. line did not impact others. Industry 4.0 factories focus on two
Furthermore, wireless communication systems entail lower growing needs: mass customization and efficiency. Customi-
installation costs and enable upgrades and modernization of zation requires flexible production lines that are able to adapt
production facilities on a larger scale. The general usage of dynamically using the tools and machines already available.
wireless communication was limited in the past to open-loop This results in traffic patterns that differ from those of In-
control and manufacturing execution system (MES) applica- dustry 3.0, and in central storage of process descriptions. The
tions due to the lack of availability, reliability and real-time. efficiency aspect is similar to what was already required in
The new 5G communication standard aims to meet these the past. However, with greater flexibility an idle production
requirements for a wide range of field-level applications. line can adapt to execute other production orders, so no ma-
Increased throughput, reliability, availability and low energy chine capacity is underutilized.
consumption will enable large-scale industrial usage. The

Fig. 1: Transformation of Industrial Networks

Industry 3.0 Transition Industry 4.0

Factory backbone Uplink to global

cloud

ERP Increased interaction

Local automation
Centralized supervision / Integrated MES Virtual PLCs cloud
Data upload

MES/Scada
Connectivity

Virtual PLCs
Control/PLC Control function are changing
Distributed control
Cloud connection
(Edge cloud
Field /IO controller)

Field/IO Vast increased in device numbers Distributedcontrol

Distributed control Secure remote
unit
unitmerges
merges access
PLC
PLCand
andIOIOModule
Module

Automation pyramid transforms to Automation pillar

ERP: Enterprise resource planning MES: Manufacturing execution system PLC: Programmable logic controller

Source: Time-Sensitive Networking for Dummies [13]

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White Paper Integration of 5G with Time-Sensitive Networking for Industrial Communications

Fig. 2: (Closed) control loop; dashed boxes need to be known in order to integrate them into control loop logic

Ethernet bridge I/O

Sensor / Actuator
PLC

Set point Difference

+ Programmable
Delay
Logic Process
+ Jitter (Network)
Controller (PLC)
–

Feedback
Delay
+ Jitter (Network)

Source: 5G-ACIA

Dynamic factory scenarios require the convergent usage of ensure the deterministic behavior of the control application,
communication technologies. As applications vary, the net- the network needs to comply with the corresponding quali-
work needs to be prepared for such changes. Using cables ty of service (QoS) requirements of that control application.
also makes dynamic arrangements of production lines diffi- QoS in this context is defined by parameters such as jitter
cult. and latency. In addition, bandwidth in a converged network is
very important. A solution in an Industry 4.0 environment is
In a flexible production system, any critical process is typi- expected to use standard Ethernet (IEEE 802.3), WLAN (IEEE
cally based on open-loop or closed-loop controls as shown in 802.11) and 5G (3GPP) technologies, combined with enhance-
Figure 2. In systems of this kind the most important require- ments for time-sensitive communication such as the TSN
ment is to understand when certain measurements occur. To standards specified by IEEE 802.1.

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 White Paper Integration of 5G with Time-Sensitive Networking for Industrial Communications

5 TSN standards for industrial automation

TSN is a set of standards specified by IEEE 802 to enable ic applications and to support TSN scheduled traffic (IEEE
Ethernet networks to give QoS guarantees for time-sensitive 802.1Qbv) – and may be needed for per-stream filtering and
and/or mission-critical traffic and applications. The various policing (IEEE 802.1Qci), described in section 5.4, ensuring
TSN standards provide differing QoS guarantees. As devic- that the bridges and end-stations can operate on a schedule
es from multiple vendors need to offer mutually compatible based on a shared understanding of time.
functions, profiles such as IEC/IEEE 60802 for Industrial Au-
tomation are being defined. These profiles focus on a com- gPTP synchronization is defined in IEEE 1588 [12]: a grand-
mon set of functions and configurations in order to decrease master PTP instance sends information, including the current
the complexity which might be created by possible variations synchronized time, to all directly connected (g)PTP instances,
in standards. e. g., using Ethernet multicast. Each of these PTP instances
must correct the received synchronized time by adding the
propagation time needed for the information to transit the
gPTP communication path from the grandmaster PTP in-
5.1 Synchronization for time- stance. If the PTP instance is a PTP relay instance, then it
sensitive applications must forward the corrected time information (including addi-
tional corrections for delays in the forwarding process) to all
Time synchronization is crucial to ensuring the deterministic the other connected PTP instances [11].
behavior of end-devices. Some TSN mechanisms also require
time synchronization. The TSN standard for time synchroni- Figure 3 shows an example of transmission of time synchro-
zation is the IEEE 802.1AS generalized Precision Time Proto- nization information for three adjacent time-aware systems.
col (gPTP) [11], which is a profile of the IEEE 1588 Precision The master port of the first node (i-1) sends “Sync” and “Fol-
Time Protocol (PTP) [12]; it allows time synchronization over low_Up” messages to the PTP instance at time-aware sys-
Ethernet only. Clock synchronization is required for specif- tem i at local clock time “ts,i-1”. The time-aware system i

Fig. 3: Transmission of time synchronization information

Time-aware system i-1 Time-aware system i Time-aware system i+1

master port slave port master port slave port

t s,i-1 Sync
Follow_ Time-aware system i
Up(prec tr,i
iseOrigin master port operating
,correc t Timesta
ionField mp in one-step mode
i-1 , rateR
atioi- ) (oneStepTXOper = TRUE)
1

Time-aware system i-1 ts,i Sync (pre

master port operating ciseOrig
inTimes
in two-step mode correc tio t a mp
nField ,
(oneStepTXOper = FALSE) i rateRat
ioi ) tr,i+1

Source: IEEE Standard 802.1AS-2020 [11]

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White Paper Integration of 5G with Time-Sensitive Networking for Industrial Communications

receives the “Sync” message from the first node, and then their traffic class is allowed to be transmitted. This gating
timestamps the receipt of the message, and the timestamp mechanism is applied on the egress side of a bridge. If multi-
value is “tr,i”. After receiving a “Follow_Up” message, the ple traffic classes are allowed to transmit at the same time,
time-aware system i computes the “correctionField(i)” which then further transmission selection is applied to them, e. g.,
includes the residence time of the time-aware system i, and strict prioritization. The mechanism of blocking queues in a
the propagation delay between time-aware system i-1 and i. time-based manner with a gate for each queue is shown in
Finally, the time-aware system i sends a new “Sync” mes- Figure 5.
sage at time “ts,i”, with the recalculated “correctionField(i)”.
Figure 6 shows how traffic scheduling is applied throughout
the bridged network by coordinating the schedules of the
bridges along the paths of the TSN streams. A packet that
5.2 Scheduled traffic enters the network can be transmitted in a single flow, with-
out being impeded at any point by another packet.
Scheduled traffic provides time-division-based resource allo-
cation for the various traffic classes identified by the priority The various packets in Figure 6 are indicated by colors. Blue
code point (PCP) field in the VLAN tag of an Ethernet head- boxes represent bridges; the egress queues are shown in
er. Scheduled traffic has been standardized in IEEE 802.1Qbv green with a white arrow pointing to the next hop. Colored
and has been already included in IEEE 802.1Q [18]. bars represent packets of a certain priority and visualize
when the corresponding gate is open for the given priority in
Figure 4 visualizes how time is divided into multiple time accordance with the gate control list. For example, as a pack-
slots which repeat cyclically. Within each of these time slots et travels along multiple bridges, it will be transmitted later
a set of traffic classes can be selected so that this slot is within the cycle. For each direction there is an egress queue,
only for transmission of these traffic classes. Packets be- which will only allow the traffic class that is scheduled to
longing to other traffic classes remain in their buffers until transmit at the indicated time slots. The white arrows show

Fig. 4: Cyclical time division with scheduled traffic

Cycle n Cycle n+1

1 2 1 2
Time
slot

Time slot 1 Time slot 2 Time slot 1 Time slot 2

… cycle n cycle n cycle n+1 cycle n+1 …
Time t

Source: Time Sensitive Networking white paper [16]

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 White Paper Integration of 5G with Time-Sensitive Networking for Industrial Communications

Fig. 5: Gate control list that allows transmission of traffic queue 7 only in T0 and all other traffic queues in T1

Traffic queue 7 Traffic queue 6 Traffic queue 1 Traffic queue 0

…
o = gate open
C = gate closed

Gate controll List

TO: oCCCCCCC

…
T1: Coooooooo

Repeat

OK X X X

Time-aware gate Time-aware gate … Time-aware gate Time-aware gate

queue 7 queue 6 queue 1 queue 0

Transmission Selection

Source: Time Sensitive Networking white paper [16]

Fig. 6: Schematic network with scheduled traffic

Time within a cycle

TSN bridge

TSN bridge TSN bridge

TSN bridge

Source: 5G-ACIA

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White Paper Integration of 5G with Time-Sensitive Networking for Industrial Communications

the connection between an egress queue and the next hop. stream gate is set to open only for frames during a scheduled
Any other traffic is allowed to be transmitted when there are arrival time slot. Frames arriving outside a time slot are con-
no marked packets. sidered interferences or unwanted frames, and are therefore
“dropped”, as the gate is already closed. PSFP requires the
implementation of stream identification as specified by IEEE
802.1CB.
5.3 Frame preemption
Certain traffic needs to pass through the network with only
minimal interference. Frame preemption specifies how pack- 5.5 Frame replication and
ets of such high-priority traffic can preempt lower-priority elimination for reliability
traffic in order to decrease interference. Frame preemption
can be used in combination with scheduled traffic to decrease Redundancy is important for critical applications. The IEEE
interference further. Frame preemption has been standard- 802.1CB Frame Replication and Elimination for Reliability
ized in IEEE 802.3br (already incorporated into IEEE 802.3- (FRER) standard [22] defines a mechanism for multiplying
2018 [19]) and in IEEE 802.1Qbv (already included in IEEE packets belonging to a given stream. This mechanism en-
802.1Q [18]). sures the network will not be overloaded unnecessarily by
the duplication of all frames. Also, the detection of dupli-
cates and merging of streams is possible, making redundan-
cy transparent for the application and ensuring redundancy
5.4 Per-stream filtering is only within the network. Figure 7 illustrates the concept
and policing of FRER. The replication function sends copies of a frame/
packet on two (or more) disjoint-routed paths, and the cop-
As time-sensitive applications are very susceptible to inter- ies are assigned the same sequence number. The elimination
fering traffic, these networks have in the past been kept com- function, when receiving the packets, deletes extra frames/
pletely isolated from the outside. Converged networks erode packets (based on the sequence number carried in the pack-
this isolation. In order to comply with QoS guarantees, per- et). The replication and elimination function can be either at
stream filtering and policing (PSFP) was standardized in IEEE the end- stations or at various bridges of the network.
802.1Qci (included in IEEE 802.1Q [18]). These mecha- nisms
allow the identification and management of non-compliant
traffic, such as intentional or unintentional excess bandwidth
usage or incorrect prioritization within a given time interval. 5.6 TSN for industrial automation
IEEE-defined PSFP includes several policing actions, e. g., The IEC/IEEE 60802 joint project [10] is currently defining a
flow meters can provide data- rate-based policing and stream TSN profile specification for the TSN features to be support-
gates can provide time-based policing [14]. Rate-based polic- ed for industrial automation. This will enable interoperability,
ing uses flow meter instances that apply to one or more TSN testing and certifications. The Open Platform Communica-
streams. It specifies parameters such as committed informa- tions (OPC) Foundation’s Field Level Communications (FLC)
tion rate and excess information rate, and these enable the initiative also aims to provide specifications based on IEC/
policing of streams that exceed the permitted rate. IEEE 60802 to achieve a single common multi-vendor con-
verged TSN network infrastructure [7]. However, the work in
Time-based policing is provided by stream gates and requires both groups is still ongoing.
time synchronization, i. e., bridges, end-stations and the ap-
plications need to have a common understanding of time. A

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 White Paper Integration of 5G with Time-Sensitive Networking for Industrial Communications

Fig. 7: Frame replication and elimination for reliability (FRER)

16 15 14

Disjoint paths

Frame flow N1 N2
16 15 14
Replication Elimination

Source: 5G-ACIA

Fig. 8: Centralized TSN network configuration

Centralized user
configuration (CUC)

Notification of
stream User/Network Stream
requirements; configuration protocol registration;
exchange of exchange of
Ap
l
co

parameters
pli
to

configuration
pr o

ca

parameters
t io

Centralized network
ion

ns
t

configuration (CNC)
ura

pe
cifi
fig

cc
on

on
cc

fig
cifi

Configuration
ura

Network management protocol

pe

of TSN
ns

tion

functions and
t io

pr o
ca

parameters
pli

to
Ap

co
l

Talker Bridge Bridge Bridge Listener

Source: Time-Sensitive Networking for Dummies [13]

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White Paper Integration of 5G with Time-Sensitive Networking for Industrial Communications

5.7 TSN configuration the OPC Foundation, are currently defining communication
between their end-devices and the CUC. Other TSN config-
For the external configuration of a network bridge, IEEE 802.1 uration models – in addition to the fully centralized config-
specifies either management information base (MIB) files for uration model described above – are the centralized network
configuration via the Simple Network Management Proto- and distributed user model and the fully distributed model.
col (SNMP) or YANG modules for configuration via NetConf These two models rely on the Stream Reservation Protocol
or RESTconf. The external centralized TSN configuration be- (SRP), which uses the Multiple Stream Registration Protocol
tween the centralized network configuration (CNC) and the (MSRP), the Multiple VLAN Registration Protocol (MVRP),
bridges is visualized in Figure 8. The task of centralized user and the Multiple MAC Registration Protocol (MMRP). How-
configuration (CUC) is to collect the requirements of the var- ever, it has been demonstrated that SRP cannot fulfill the
ious applications in the network and forward them in collec- needs of industrial automation networks. Therefore, com-
tions per stream (“one talker, multiple listeners”) to the CNC. pletely new protocols are being developed to perform distrib-
After configuration by the CNC, the CUC forwards the final uted resource reservation. The IEEE P802.1CS Link-local Reg-
configurations to the end-devices. The CNC either knows the istration Protocol (LRP) will provide a new base protocol, in a
capabilities and boundaries of a bridge in the network in ad- similar way to the role of the Multiple Registration Protocol
vance, via file descriptors, or can read them at runtime. (MRP) as a base protocol for MSRP, MVRP, and MMRP. The
IEEE P802.1Qdd Resource Allocation Protocol (RAP), which
The IEEE 802.1Qcc-2018 standard [23] defines data structures builds upon LRP, will be the actual resource reservation pro-
for the requirements per talker and listener, and all necessary tocol suitable for industrial automation. However, standard-
information for talkers and listeners, for the final configura- ization of RAP is at an early stage and the draft is still in-
tion. Enhancements to the centralized configuration will be complete. The IEEE P802.1Qdd Project Authorization Request
provided by the ongoing IEEE P802.1Qdj project. The IEEE (PAR) indicates completion in October 2022. It is expected to
P802.1Qdj Project Authorization Request (PAR) is expected to take some time until RAP can be considered for 5G networks.
be completed in October 2022. Various organizations, such as

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 White Paper Integration of 5G with Time-Sensitive Networking for Industrial Communications

6 TSN in a factory
6.1 Typical use cases coordination of multiple controllers for joint performance of
tasks. Applications of this type can be mapped to the above
Industrial automation comprises the automated control, high-level use cases.
monitoring and optimization of processes and workflows. It
includes aspects such as closed-loop control applications and A more advanced example is a camera-assisted production
robotics, as well as aspects of computer-integrated manu- cell, where a robot arm performs sorting or palletizing op-
facturing [4]. erations. A set of image sensors with wireless and/or wired
connectivity can be placed around a production cell or be in-
3GPP TS 22.104 [3] and IEC/IEEE 60802 [15] [33] have de- tegrated into machines and robots. Image analysis allows 3D
scribed many important indus- trial automation use cases. image reconstruction, or scene analysis, and can be utilized
This white paper focuses on the following high-level industri- for the control of industrial machines, AGVs or robots. Based
al automation control use cases as described in [2]: on the image analysis results, a controller unit controls the
robot arm position to pick up and place items into the cor-
A Controller-to-controller (C2C) and line controller-to- rect package or onto a pallet. Camera-assisted control of this
controller (L2C) communication kind entails both C2C and C2D. When 3D image analysis is
C2C is communication between controllers/masters performed centrally in a control/server room, centralized con-
(C/M). L2C is communication between production line trol can be applied. This would be the case, for instance, if the
C/M and machine C/M controlling devices on the shop floor do not have the neces-
sary hardware and processing power to perform complex 3D
B Controller-to-device (C2D) communication imaging processing in a bounded time. If, on the other hand,
Communication between controllers (C/M) and field the distributed control devices have the necessary hardware
devices (sensor/actuator, S/A), C2D can be further divided and processing capacity to perform the 3D image analysis lo-
into: cally, distributed control can be applied. Recorded images can
• C2D distributed control: both controller, e. g., pro- also be used for offline quality inspection; the related com-
grammable logic controller (PLC), and field devices munication corresponds to D2Cmp.
are distributed in local machines or production cells.
• C2D centralized control: virtualized PLCs are located
at a centralized location in, e. g., an edge cloud,
and they control field devices at local machines or 6.2 Industrial communication
production cells. requirements
C Device-to-compute (D2Cmp) communication A TSN-based industrial communication network is a con-
Non-control-relevant communication (not handled by verged network that allows a mix of various traffic types.
C/M) between device and com- puter, for example, Service requirements range from best-effort traffic to critical
applications used in process automation (monitoring, real-time traffic. Several organizations (e. g., 3GPP [3], IEC/
data collection and analytics, inventories). These IEEE [33] , IEEE [18], IIC [14]) have defined traffic types and
functions are typically implemented across the entire corresponding requirements of relevance to industrial auto-
production facility or are cloud-based. mation, and these are summarized in Table 1.

Concrete industrial automation applications have been de-

scribed in [29], and include safety light curtains to protect
defined areas from intrusion by objects, control of autono-
mous guided vehicles (AGVs) and mobile robots, closed-loop
control in discrete manufacturing or process automation, and

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White Paper Integration of 5G with Time-Sensitive Networking for Industrial Communications

Table 1: Industrial automation traffic types, service requirement and related TSN features [33] [14]

Traffic types Periodic / Typical Data Tolerance Tolerance Typical data Criticality
Sporadic period delivery to Jitter to loss size (Byte)
guarantee

Isochronous P 100 µs ~ 2 ms Deadline 0 None Fixed: High

30 ~ 100

Cyclic P 500 µs ~ 1 ms latency ≤τ None Fixed: High

-Synchronous bound (τ) 50 ~ 1000

Cyclic P 2 ms ~ 20 ms latency ≤τ 1~4 Fixed: High

-Asynchronous bound (τ) Frames 50 ~ 1000

Events: control S 10 ms ~ 50 ms latency n.a. Yes Variable: High

bound (τ) 100 ~ 200

Events: alarm & latency Variable: Medium

operator com- S 2s bound (τ) n.a. Yes 100 ~1500
mands

Network control P 50 ms ~ 1 s throughput Yes Yes Variable: High

50 ~ 500

Configuration & S n.a. throughput n.a. Yes Variable: Medium

diagnostics 500 ~ 1500

Video P Frame Rate throughput n.a. Yes Variable: 1000 Low

~ 1500

Audio/Voice P Sample Rate throughput n.a. Yes Variable: 1000 Low

~1500

Best effort S n.a. None n.a. Yes Variable: Low

30 ~ 1500

Note 1: M: mandatory, (T): time-based policing, (R): rate-based policing, O: optional, R: recommended. Various organizations
have proposed diverse traffic priority values that differ from those given here
Note 2: Time synchronization refers to synchronization of data transmission time to the network cycle for synchronized TSN
operation. In addition, some applications may require time synchronization via the network.
Note 3: For camera-assisted control applications, camera traffic can be cyclic-asynchronous. Cameras are synchronized at
application level with a required synchronicity in the range of 1µs-10µs. Camera traffic may produce higher data throughputs
(e. g., 1080p / 30Hz / 8-bit pixel video corresponds to 500 Mbit/s).

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 White Paper Integration of 5G with Time-Sensitive Networking for Industrial Communications

Traffic Strict Redund- Time Scheduled Frame PSFP TSN confi­

priorities priority IEEE ancy IEEE synchroni- traffic IEEE preemp- IEEE guration
(VLAN PCP) 802.1Q 802.1CB zation IEEE 802.1Qbv tion IEEE 802.1Qci IEEE
802.1AS 802.1Qbu 802.1Qcc

6 M O Yes M M(T) M

5 M O Yes M M(T) M

5 M O No R M(R) M

4 M O No O M(R) M

3 M O No O M(R) M

7 M O No

2 M O M(R) M

1 M O No O M(R) M

1 M O No O M(R) M

0 M O

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White Paper Integration of 5G with Time-Sensitive Networking for Industrial Communications

The traffic may be sporadic, i. e., a message may be trans- PCPs according to their QoS requirements and criticality, as
mitted by an application at any time, or periodic, where mes- shown in Table 1.
sages are transmitted regularly in a cyclic pattern. The typical
period denotes the interval commonly experienced between Criticality in Table 1 refers to the criticality of the data for the
successive messages of the application. operation of the critical parts of the system [14]. This applica-
tion criticality is used as a criterion for the selection of the ap-
Data delivery guarantee [14] serves as a guide to the selec- propriate QoS/TSN mechanisms and bandwidth reservations
tion of appropriate Ethernet QoS mechanisms for the ap- in case of conflicting requirements.
plication’s data transmission. If a packet cannot meet its
guaranteed requirement, the packet may be considered lost • High (e. g., PCP 4 to 7 in Table 1): for traffic types used
or discarded by the application. Three types of data delivery either by applications or net- work services that are
guarantees are defined: highly critical to the operation of the system. Data loss
of this traffic type may cause critical system malfunc-
• Deadline: packet delivery is guaranteed to arrive at the tion and cannot be repeated or retransmitted by the
receivers by a specified time. A deadline describes the application,
upper latency bound which is usually one transmission • Medium (e. g., PCP 2 and 3 in Table 1): for traffic types
period. This type of delivery guarantee is applicable to used either by applications or network services that
isochronous traffic types with periodic data transmis- are relevant to but not continuously needed for the
sion. operation of critical parts of the system. Data loss may
• Latency: packet delivery is guaranteed to arrive at cause degraded operation but not a system malfunc-
receivers within a predictable timespan. The timespan tion. Data loss can be rectified by repeating/retrans-
varies depending on the traffic type. mitting the same data.
• Throughput: packet delivery is guaranteed to arrive at • Low (e. g., PCP 0 and 1 in Table 1): for traffic types used
receivers within the reserved throughput bound. either by applications or network services that are
not relevant to the operation of the critical parts of
Tolerance to jitter [14]: the application’s tolerance to jitter. the system. Data loss can be rectified by repeating/
This parameter is applicable to most types of periodic traffic. retransmitting the same data.
In the case of cyclic traffic type, the jitter must be less than
the guaranteed latency. Table 1 lists the TSN features recommended for the different
traffic types.
Tolerance to loss [14]: application’s tolerance to a certain
degree of consecutive packet loss (or packets which do not IEEE 802.1Q strict priority is the default transmission selec-
meet the data delivery guarantee). tion algorithm using PCP values. Traffic class priority is one of
the main mechanisms for addressing criticality in industrial
Typical data size [14]: the size of application message (e. g., automation. IEEE 802.1Q [18] provides an example of map-
encapsulated in the payload of an Ethernet frame). Accord- ping between traffic class and PCP values according to the
ing to IEEE 802.3 [19], the payload size of an Ethernet frame number of traffic classes supported by the bridge port. For
ranges from 46 bytes to 1500 bytes. example, if eight traffic classes are supported by the bridge
port, each PCP is mapped to a separate traffic class with its
Priority code point (PCP): a field of the VLAN tag that indi- own specific queue at the bridge port; if fewer traffic classes
cates the priority of the frame. There are eight traffic priori- are supported by the bridge (as shown in Figure 9), multiple
ties values, where “0” denotes the lowest priority and “7” de- PCPs need to be merged into a single traffic class and port
notes the highest priority. Different traffic types are assigned queue. The traffic class value indicates which QoS mecha-

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 White Paper Integration of 5G with Time-Sensitive Networking for Industrial Communications

Fig. 9: Packet prioritization in TSN based on IEEE 802.1Q

Traffic type
App
Traffic classes
PCP

Eth pkt 0
0
Eth pkt 1

Eth pkt 2
1
Eth pkt 3

Eth pkt 4
2
Eth pkt 5
TC
Eth pkt 6 prioritization
3 Egress port & gating
Eth pkt 7
Ingress port

Mapping ≥1 PCP onto TCs

Source: 5G-ACIA

nisms the network queuing and forwarding functions should Events traffic for “alarms and operator commands” requires
apply to the packet. time synchronization via the network [14] because it is nec-
essary for the application to timestamp or track the sequence
According to [14][33], the isochronous, cyclic and events traf- of events, e. g., alarms on devices. However, it does not have
fic types are classified as critical for industrial automation. to be synchronized to the network cycle.
Both isochronous and cyclic traffic types entail periodic data
transmission. The isochronous type has more stringent ser- IEEE 802.1Qci per-stream filtering and policing is an import-
vice performance requirements than other types. Therefore, ant TSN feature that can be applied to protect the devices
a set of TSN features, such as strict priority control, time syn- from unexpected traffic or interference. In some cases, PSFP
chronization according to IEEE 802.1AS, and scheduled traffic is only applied at end-stations; in other cases, it is also ap-
according to IEEE 802.1Qbv, are required. plied at network bridges. In the ongoing IEC/IEEE 60802 [10],
PSFP is currently an optional function for TSN bridges and
The cyclic traffic type also has high performance require- end-stations.
ments; however, it differs from the isochronous traffic type
in that some jitter and a limited degree of packet loss may be Network control traffic has the highest priority of all. Dropped
acceptable. Cyclic can be divided into synchronous cyclic and packets due to ingress policing are unacceptable. Due to its
asynchronous cyclic. Synchronous cyclic has similar service high criticality, it is advisable to reserve some bandwidth for
requirements to isochronous. They both require IEEE 802.1AS network control even if transmission gates are used, e. g.,
time synchronization and IEEE 802.1Qbv scheduled traffic. by assigning some portion of the transmission gate time to
For the asynchronous cyclic traffic type, time synchronization network control, potentially in combination with other critical
and scheduled traffic features are not required. traffic types.

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White Paper Integration of 5G with Time-Sensitive Networking for Industrial Communications

6.3 Introduction and use of TSN the industrial Ethernet and/or fieldbus inside each machine
in industrial scenarios and in the backbone via the TSN connectivity layer.

TSN is fully backward compatible with legacy Ethernet bridg-

6.3.1 TSN deployments ing. Both TSN bridges and legacy Ethernet bridges (i. e., up to
IEEE 802.1Q-2014 compliant) can co-exist in the same net-
There can be three connectivity segments in an industrial au- work with some limitations. For example, with a brownfield
tomation network, as shown in Figure 10: deployment, TSN can be partly introduced in the backbone
segment, and TSN-capable devices can be connected to lega-
• a central room / edge cloud, cy Ethernet devices, and vice versa, without the need for pro-
• local machines, and tocol translators or gateways.
• an industrial backbone.
As shown on the left in Figure 10, existing vendor-specific in-
The central room is a centralized management segment dustrial Ethernet solutions (brown circles) are typically used
where centralized control and management functions are inside a machine. The green blocks denote various types of
located, such as centralized PLCs, CNC and automation data field-level devices, e. g., sensors, actuators, i. e., input and
collection. These functions typically have interactions with output (I/O) devices. Brown circles denote industrial Ethernet
other devices across the entire industrial automation net- or fieldbus devices, e. g., Profinet bridges. The PLC is located
work. The central room can host the enterprise edge cloud, inside a machine (yellow circles), production cell or production
for example a local automation cloud as indicated in Figure 1. line, and it controls field-level devices (i. e., C2D communica-
tion) through existing industrial Ethernet or fieldbus solu-
The local machine segment consists of multiple machines. tions. Field-level devices react to the control data received
Each machine is equipped with field devices (e. g., sensors, from the PLCs, and subsequently send their feedback to the
actuators) and may have a local PLC. PLCs via the same link.

The industrial backbone provides transport services for the The relationship between traffic types (as described in Ta-
central management segment and local machine segments. ble 1) and use cases is shown in Table 2. The C2D and C2C use
The connectivity service can be either between multiple local cases mainly comprise cyclic, events, and configuration and
machines or between the central management level and local diagnostics traffic types. C2D may in addition include isochro-
machines. nous communication. D2Cmp comprises the traffic types:
events, configuration and diagnostics, audio/voice and video,
A likely scenario is that the brownfield introduction of TSN and best-effort traffic services.
would probably begin with providing backbone connectivity
for interconnecting machines. These machines in turn use ex- Full adoption of TSN on the shop floor is shown on the right-
isting fieldbus solutions [8][9]. The machine controller (PLC) hand side of Figure 10 (grey arrows). Full adoption will be
is connected to a TSN edge bridge or bridges in the indus- possible in future (greenfield) factory deployments based
trial backbone network. The TSN backbone network provides on the latest, future-proof wired TSN technology. This can
transport services for machines with TSN features (e. g., also be achieved with existing networks provided all legacy
C2C and L2C communication). As a result, all ecosystems wired connectivity infrastructure is migrated to TSN. In this
benefit from the technical advancements of the IEEE 802 scenario, all devices in the network must be TSN-compatible,
standards, such as higher throughput and support for new i. e., TSN not only enables communication for the backbone
media types [17][34]. In addition, field level devices gener- segment of the network, but also inside local machines and
ate non-time-sensitive traffic (i. e., D2Cmp communication) production cells. As a result, the entire industrial automation
which is transmitted to the local automation cloud via both network can be interconnected by a single communication

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 White Paper Integration of 5G with Time-Sensitive Networking for Industrial Communications

Fig. 10: Example of the introduction of TSN for industrial automation

Central room / Edge cloud

C2D C2D
Centralized C2C Centralized
control control
CUC CNC

TSN
backbone

D2Cmp D2Cmp

C2C

C2D C2D C2D C2D

Distributed Distributed Distributed Distributed
control control control control
Machine / cell / line #1 Machine / cell / line #2 Machine / cell / line #3 Machine / cell / line #N

E. g. brownfield E.g. greenfield

IEEE 802.1Q Ethernet IEEE 802.1Q Bridge PLC

TSN connection Pure TSN device TSN & fieldbus device

Fieldbus Fieldbus device Sensor/Actuator

Source: 5G-ACIA

solution. PLCs and I/O devices inside an individual machine the exploitation of technological advances, for instance in
are also then connected via TSN. Bridges in the TSN network edge cloud computing. Centralized controllers and PLCs are
will support TSN functionality, while some bridges may use enabled by a TSN deployment as shown on the righthand
other industrial protocols (such as a PROFINET 2.4 compliant side of Figure 10 where TSN connectivity reaches down to
bridge [20], which expands the existing PROFINET portfolio the field devices. In this figure, virtualized PLCs are located
to include TSN). centrally, e. g., in an edge cloud, and they control field devices
at Machine #3 and Machine #N respectively (C2D centralized
In an Industry 4.0 production environment with a converged control). At the same time, Machine #3 and #N could also
network infrastructure enabled by TSN, applications can be have local PLCs for C2D distributed control, e. g., for safety
located anywhere and do not need to be physically close to functions.
the field-level applications. This offers far greater flexibility,
and allows some control functions to be moved from field
level to centralized management level [2][13]. It also allows

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White Paper Integration of 5G with Time-Sensitive Networking for Industrial Communications

Table 2: Summary of traffic types, requirements and TSN functionality

Adoption steps towards C2C / L2C C2D C2D D2Cmp

wired TSN in industrial (distributed (centralized
automation control) control)

Traffic types options • Isochronous • Isochronous • Isochronous • Events

• Cyclic synchronous & • Cyclic, synchronous & • Cyclic, synchronous & • Config & diagnostics,
asynchronous asynchronous asynchronous • Audio/voice,
• Events • Events • Events • Video,
• Config & diagnostics • Config & diagnostics • Config & diagnostics • Best effort

Connectivity domains Backbone Local connectivity Device to central Device to central

(intra-cell/machine) location via local and location via local and back-
backbone domains bone domains

A L
 egacy pre-TSN Legacy (fieldbus) Legacy (fieldbus) Legacy (partially available)
communication (normally not used)

B1 M
 ixed legacy Legacy Ethernet Legacy (fieldbus) Legacy fieldbus (local) (partially available)
Ethernet and TSN and TSN (+5G) Legacy Ethernet + TSN
in the backbone (backbone)

B2 backbone TSN (+5G) Legacy (fieldbus) Legacy fieldbus (local) (partially available)
TSN (backbone)

C F
 ull TSN adoption IEEE 802.1Q + IEEE 802.1Q + TSN (+5G) IEEE 802.1Q + TSN (+5G) IEEE 802.1Q (+5G)
(in the backbone and TSN (+5G)
the machines /
production cells)

Features required • Needed: IEEE 802.1Q strict priority, Qci, Qcc

when TSN is used • Optional: IEEE 802.1CB FRER, Qbu
(from Table 1)

• IEEE 802.1AS + Qbv (in case of isochronous and synchronous cyclic traffic type)

Additional features • Synchronization of applications via the network is optional in line with the application’s requirements, e. g., for
events/alarms traffic type. Synchronization of this type can be with multiple clocks and can be, e. g., via IEEE
802.1AS.

Note 1: Network control traffic is generic for the entire industrial network, not specific to the use case.
Note 2: The table lists traffic type options for C2C, C2D and D2Cmp. The choice of suitable traffic types is up to implementation.

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 White Paper Integration of 5G with Time-Sensitive Networking for Industrial Communications

Fig. 11: An example scenario with multiple TSN domains

Central room / Edge cloud

CUC4 CNC4

TSN
Higher level (backbone) TSN domain
backbone

CUC1 CNC1 CUC2 CNC2 CUC3 CNC3

Machine / cell / line #1 Machine / cell / line #2 Machine / cell / line #3 Machine / cell / line #4
TSN domain #1 TSN domain #2 TSN domain #3

IEEE 802.1Q Ethernet IEEE 802.1Q Bridge TSN & fieldbus device Hierachical TSN network confi guration
Higher hierarchy
TSN connection Pure TSN device Sensor/Actuator
CNC4
Fieldbus PLC
CNC1 CNC2 CNC3
Lower hierarchy

Source: 5G-ACIA

With regard to network configuration and deployment, a fac- The definition of and relationship between TSN domains is
tory can be divided into one or multiple TSN domains. Each ongoing work for IEEE 802.1 and IEC/IEEE 60802. Howev-
TSN domain is characterized by its own CUC/CNC in the case er, Figure 11 shows an example of how various CNCs can be
of centralized configuration. See Figure 11, where the TSN structured, e. g., in a hierarchy. In Figure 11 certain machines
network is divided into four TSN domains. or production cells could potentially have their own dedicated
TSN domains, each domain with its own CNC. When there is
A TSN domain is defined as two or more industrial automa- a need to create TSN streams across TSN domain boundaries,
tion devices that are jointly managed [33][15]. A TSN domain also known as inter- TSN domain communication, a lower hi-
is generally different from the time synchronization domains erarchy CNC can escalate TSN stream requests bet- ween TSN
described in section 6.3.2, Figure 12. A TSN domain can have domains to the CNC higher in the hierarchy. The higher-level
its own dedicated TSN working clock domain, or multiple TSN CNC can then configure these TSN stream paths between the
domains can share a working clock domain. Figure 11 only de- TSN domains at the lower hierarchy level.
picts a multiple TSN domain configuration: This differs from
the one with multiple clock domains depicted in Figure 12 and
should be considered separately.

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White Paper Integration of 5G with Time-Sensitive Networking for Industrial Communications

Fig. 12: Time synchronization domains within a factory

“Global” time domain

Central room / Edge cloud

CUC CNC

TSN
backbone TSN time
domain

Working clock Working clock

domain 1 domain 2 Working clock domain 3

Machine / cell / line #1 Machine / cell / line #2 Machine / cell / line #3 Machine / cell / line #N

IEEE 802.1Q Ethernet IEEE 802.1Q Bridge PLC

TSN connection Pure TSN device TSN & fieldbus device

Fieldbus Fieldbus device Sensor/Actuator

Source: 5G-ACIA

Fig. 13: IEEE 802.1Qbv centrally managed network with traffic-class-based scheduling

Stream QoS
CUC Application QoS
NetConf / RESTconf /SNMP

CNC

End-device TSN
Bridge 1
End-device

TSN TSN
Bridge 3 Bridge 4

End-device TSN End-device

Bridge 2

Source: 5G-ACIA

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 White Paper Integration of 5G with Time-Sensitive Networking for Industrial Communications

6.3.2 Use of TSN features the working clock used to synchronize the application is also
used to synchronize network access [33]. In Figure 12 this is
Time synchronization shown as a TSN time domain (yellow dotted line), which may
Time synchronization in a TSN network is achieved by distrib- in practice be identical to one of the working clock domains.
uting time information within a time domain. A device can be
in two differing types of time domains simultaneously: Scheduled traffic
For critical communication streams, the CNC can manage the
• A global/universal clock domain, typically one for the entire path of time-sensitive streams from end to end via
whole plant/factory, providing date and time scheduled traffic according to IEEE 802.1Qbv. The end-devic-
• A working clock domain, typically one for each single es and TSN bridges are synchronized with a shared time, and
(or set of) machine/cell/line, providing a highly precise the CNC receives the transmis- sion schedule of TSN talkers
time via the CUC. The CNC can define traffic schedules for each
traffic class at the egress port of TSN bridges, as depicted in
In the example given in Figure 12 there is a single global time Figure 13. In this example, all time-critical traffic streams are
domain spanning the entire factory, and three working clock mapped to the same priority code point used for real-time
domains. Of these, domains 1 and 2 are used in the produc- traffic. Other traffic is mapped to other PCPs. The CNC con-
tion cells 1 and 2, respectively, and working clock domain 3 figures the transmission gates for each bridge to create a
spans the two production cells 3 and 4. For redundancy, a de- time slot for transmission of the traffic of all TSN streams
vice may also be assigned a second global time domain and a mapped to the time-sensitive PCP (marked as red in Fig-
second working clock domain (not shown in the figure). ure 13) and another time slot for other PCPs (marked as green
in Figure 13). In this example, the gate control list for each
For some industrial applications, e. g., isochronous or cyclic bridge egress port has only two entries.
synchronous applications, the application and network access
can be synchronized with the working clock. This means that
TSN bridges in the network (at least those that make use of
IEEE 802.1Qbv and time-based PSFP) need to have a com-
mon understanding of time across the application data cycle,
the network cycle and the scheduling cycle [33]. In this case,

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White Paper Integration of 5G with Time-Sensitive Networking for Industrial Communications

7 5G support for TSN

5G, the next generation of 3GPP technologies, offers capabil- virtual bridge. Time-sensitive UE-to-UE communication for
ities specifically designed to meet industrial needs. These in- TSN via UPF will be improved in 5G Release 17 [32].
clude URLLC in 5G-NR, support for TSN, and the network de-
ployment scenarios for non-public network (NPN) operation, Table 3 lists the individual IEEE 802 standards that are being
ranging from standalone NPNs to public network integrated considered by 3GPP for the specification of the 5GS bridge.
NPNs [6]. In Release 16 [5], 3GPP adopted 5G-TSN integration The 5GS bridge must support all features but does not neces-
for time-sensitive communication. Some 5GS features for sarily need to use all of them for transmitting TSN streams;
5G-TSN integration are described below. it can also operate as an IEEE 802.1Q bridge without specific
TSN capabilities. However, the 5GS bridge is able to make use
of this information in order to optimize its operation, e. g., to
optimize radio access resource allocation.
7.1 5G-TSN bridge model
In addition to integration on the user plane, the 5GS bridge
For integration with TSN, it was proposed by 3GPP that the model supports integration with existing network man-
5GS interoperate in a transparent manner to minimize im- agement systems (NMSs), typically using protocols such as
pact on other TSN entities. The 5GS acts as one or more vir- SNMP/ MIB. Via TSN AF, the 5GS bridge would expose its
tual or logical TSN bridge(s) of the TSN network, providing capabilities, including individual ports and topology infor-
control plane connectivity and TSN ports at the user plane mation, and the NMS would be able to provide configuration
(see Figure 14). This bridge model includes TSN translator information to the 5GS, particularly information related to
(TT) functionality that is available IEEE 802.1Q. All information relevant to establishing an end-
to-end connection can be controlled by the NMS through ex-
(i) at the control plane by means of a TSN application func- isting interfaces with the 5GS (which needs to be correctly
tion (AF), pre-configured with all necessary information). To this end,
(ii) on the UE side by means of a device-side TT (DS-TT), the TSN-enabled 5GS bridge exposes the relevant interfaces
and to a CNC via the aforementioned TSN AF. Further details of
(iii) on the user plane function (UPF) side by means of a exposure of 5G network capabilities for TSN support are ad-
network-side TT (NW-TT). dressed in [31] and by ongoing work on Release 17 [32].

A UPF and all UEs connected to that UPF act as a 5GS virtual The 5GS bridge contains bridge information used by the TSN
bridge, as shown in Figure 14. The 5GS may have more than network to make appropriate configurations for the 5GS
one UPF and may therefore have multiple 5GS bridges. Each bridge. A list of bridge capabilities that are supported by the
DS-TT port is assigned to a specific protocol data unit (PDU) 5GS bridge is given in Table 3.
session in the 5GS, and every NW-TT port is assigned to a
physical port at the UPF. All PDU sessions connected to a spe-
cific UPF form a group and belong to a single virtual bridge.
The NW-TT ports support connectivity to the TSN network;
the ports on DS-TT side are assigned to the PDU session pro-
viding connectivity to the TSN network.

Multiple PDU sessions from a single UE to differing UPFs may

be established for redundant transmission or for traffic isola-
tion. In this scenario, a UE configured with multiple PDU ses-
sions to differing UPFs is shared by multiple virtual bridges.
Each DS-TT port (assigned to a PDU session) belongs to one

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 White Paper Integration of 5G with Time-Sensitive Networking for Industrial Communications

Table 3: List of 5G bridge capabilities [5]

Bridge capability Reference

Bridge ID, Chassis ID, etc. IEEE 802.1Q

Traffic forwarding information IEEE 802.1Q clause 8.8.1

Bridge delay, propagation delay related information IEEE 802.1Qcc clause 12.32.1, 12.32.2

5GS bridge topology and neighbor discovery IEEE 802.1AB

Traffic class related information IEEE 802.1Q clause 12.6.3 and clause 8.6.6.

Bridge enhancements for support of scheduled traffic IEEE 802.1Q clause 8.6.8.4, 12.9, Annex Q.2 (Qbv) (optional)

Per-Stream filtering and policing information IEEE 802.1Q clause 8.6.5.1 (Qci)

Time synchronization as a time-aware system IEEE 802.1AS

Fig. 14: The 5GS acts as one or more virtual TSN bridge(s) (per UPF-based 5G virtual bridge) [5]

5G System
5G control plane
TSN AF(s) CNC

Bridge A (logical bridge)

NW-TT

PDU session 1A UPF-A

DS-TT RAN

TSN bridge / TSN

UE1
End station
PDU session 1B
DS-TT RAN NW-TT

PDU session 2B
DS-TT UE2 RAN
UPF-B
TSN bridge /
End station
Bridge B (logical bridge)

Source: 3GPP technical specification 23.501

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White Paper Integration of 5G with Time-Sensitive Networking for Industrial Communications

For 5G standardization work on Release 16 [5], it is assumed 7.2 5G support for TSN time
that all VLAN settings are pre-configured by the 5GS opera- synchronization
tion and maintenance (OAM) entity. The VLAN configuration
information is located at the TSN AF and UPF/NW-TT with- 5G supports TSN time synchronization (as defined by IEEE
out the need to exchange any information via the port man- 802.1AS) across 5G-based Ethernet links with PDU-session
agement information container. The TSN AF and UPF/NW-TT type Ethernet. The 5GS is a time-aware system [5] as per
have the same 5GS bridge VLAN configuration. This can be IEEE 802.1AS as depicted in Figure 15. The time error intro-
applied to both network- and device-side ports. VLAN infor- duced by the 5GS is limited to 900ns [3].
mation is part of 5GS bridge capabilities. The CNC obtains the
5GS bridge VLAN configuration from the TSN AF as per IEEE There are two concurrent synchronization processes in an in-
802.1Q [18] clause 12.10.1.1. 5GS support for dynamic VLAN tegrated 5G-TSN system: 5GS synchronization and TSN syn-
configuration (i. e., CNC-controlled VLAN configuration) is be- chronization. TSN synchronization provides the synchroniza-
ing improved in Release 17. tion service to devices in the TSN network. 5GS provides an
internal system clock for 5GS internal synchronization where
the gNB, the NW-TT at UPF side and the DS-TT at UE side are
all synchronized to the 5G internal system clock.

Fig. 15: 5G support for TSN synchronization (IEEE 802.1AS)

Synchronization for RAN (G.8275.1)

5G GM 5G System is a time-aware
system
TSN GM
5G Transport
TSe PTP-aware TSi
TSN
TSN (G.8275.1) working clock
Systems UU
DS-TT UE gNB UPF NW-TT domain

Synchronization for TSN network, compliant with IEEE 802.1AS

Source: “A Look Inside 5G Standards to Support Time Synchronization for Smart Manufacturing”, IEEE communications standards Magazine,
2020 [27]

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 White Paper Integration of 5G with Time-Sensitive Networking for Industrial Communications

With regard to TSN synchronization, the NW-TT entity gener- can also support multiple time domains, including both glob-
ates an ingress timestamp (TSi) based on the 5GS reference al time and working clock domains (up to 128 working clock
time for every gPTP message entering the 5GS at the UPF domains [3]) as shown in Figure 16. Each time domain is iden-
and embeds the timestamp within that gPTP message. Fur- tified by a specific domain number in the gPTP message. An
thermore, the UPF forwards the gPTP message to the UE via end-station can select timing information of interest based
the user plane (i. e., via a PDU session). Once a UE receives the on the domain number in the gPTP message.
gPTP message, the UE forwards it to the DS-TT. The DS-TT
then creates an egress timestamp (TSe) for the gPTP mes- To further facilitate deployment in industrial automation
sage of the external gPTP working domain. This timestamp is scenarios, 3GPP is currently developing uplink TSN time
also based on the 5GS reference time which was provided to synchronization and UE-to-UE time synchronization for the
the UE by the 5GS internal synchronization process. The dif- upco- ming Release 17. This is shown in Figure 16. In these
ference between TSi and TSe is the residence time this gPTP two cases, the TSN grandmaster can come from the UE side,
message has spent within the 5GS. The DS-TT modifies the whereby the DS-TT at UE side can also act as the ingress in-
TSN timing information received from gPTP messages based terface for gPTP messages while the NW-TT can act as the
on the calculated 5GS residence time and sends it to the next egress interface.
time-aware TSN system connected to the UE/DS-TT. The 5GS

Fig. 16: 5G support for multiple time synchronization domains and uplink synchronization via the network

GM
clock 1
5G System
End station A Non-3GPP Bridge
netwok

5GC
UE
End station B End station C
Non-3GPP
netwok
5G Non-3GPP
Bridge UE netwok
End station D
GM
clock 2

UE
End station E GM
clock 3
Time-aware system

Source: 5G-ACIA

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White Paper Integration of 5G with Time-Sensitive Networking for Industrial Communications

7.3 5G support for highly reliable duplication can be used via independent radio links. Figure 17
communication (b) shows how RAN dual connectivity is employed to create
redundant paths via
5G enables extra-robust transmission modes for increased
reliability for both data and control radio channels. Reliabil- independent RAN nodes and UPF nodes to achieve both link
ity can be further improved by various techniques, such as redundancy and node redundancy. Figure 17 (c) further ex-
multi-antenna transmission, the use of multiple carriers, and tends reliability with the use of redundant UEs.
packet duplication over independent radio links.
IEEE 802.1CB for frame replication and elimination for reliabil-
Figure 17 (a) shows an example of reliable transmission be- ity (FRER) can be used in combination with 3GPP redundancy
tween nodes. A single PDU session is transmitted through features. A 5GS can be deployed as separate virtual bridges
the 5GS. Various mechanisms can be applied to the multiple (as shown in Figure 14). When this is exposed to the CNC, the
segments of the transmission to increase transmission reli- CNC can configure the traffic flow in the TSN network to use
ability. For example, for transmission between RAN and UPF, the redundant virtual bridges and paths. The FRER functions
two redundant and independent transport network paths can can be located outside 3GPP nodes (e. g., at TSN end-sta-
be configured. Also, between UE and RAN, techniques such tions); the redundant PDU sessions provided by 5GS are part
as multi-antenna trans- mission, multiple carriers and data of two separate virtual bridges (Figure 17 (b) and (c)).

Fig. 17: 5G support for highly reliable communication

5G System
Application Application
UE RAN 5GC
A DS-TT UPF NW-TT
Non-3GPP Non-3GPP
netwok netwok

Application Application
UE RAN 5GC
B DS-TT UPF NW-TT
Non-3GPP Non-3GPP
netwok DS-TT UPF NW-TT netwok

Application Application
UE RAN 5GC
C DS-TT UPF NW-TT
Non-3GPP Non-3GPP
netwok UE netwok
DS-TT UPF NW-TT

Source: 5G-ACIA

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 White Paper Integration of 5G with Time-Sensitive Networking for Industrial Communications

A 5G core network (CN) also provides control plane redun- 7.4 TSN traffic handling in a 5GS
dancy through a service-based architecture (SBA). The SBA
can be independent of user plane redundancy solutions. The For configuration of TSN traffic handling in the 5GS bridge,
combination of control-plane and user-plane redundancy the TSN application function (AF) interacts on the basis of
maximizes 5G reliability. The 5G CN control plane supports IEEE 802.1Qcc (see, e. g., [28][21]) with a CNC as specified in
the network function (NF) set, which provides distributed, 3GPP TS 23.501 [5] and TS 23.502 [30].
redundant and load-balancing NFs. Equivalent control plane
NFs may be grouped into NF sets, e. g., several access and Figure 18 describes the interaction between a CNC and the
mobility management function (AMF) instances are grouped TSN AF in three phases, where the TSN AF acts as a “proxy”
into an AMF set. NF instances within an NF set are inter- between a CNC using standardized network management in-
changeable; they have the same functionality and share the terfaces, and the 5GS. This avoids the exposure of 5G-specific
same context. They can be deployed in multiple locations, configuration details and it allows the use of established net-
e. g., multiple data centers or edges. The NFs in a CN can be work management systems.
deployed with 1:1 or 1:N hot or cold backup
Phase 1 (pre-configuration)
. Pre-configuring the bridge information in a 5GS. The bridge
ID of the 5GS bridge, and port numbers of the NW-TT ports,
can be pre-configured on the UPF. The TSN AF needs to be
pre-configured with a QoS mapping table. The mapping table

Fig. 18: Control plane interaction between TSN and 5GS

CNC

Bridge & ports, TSN traffic info.,

IEEE 802.1Q. Traffic schedule
Traffi c classes (gating info.),
IEEE 802.1AB,
Priority,
2 3 Traffic
forwarding info.,
Bridge delay …
…

TSN AF
5GS bridge 5GS bridge
capability Pre-configuration configuration
report
1
5GS bridge

Source: 5G-ACIA

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White Paper Integration of 5G with Time-Sensitive Networking for Industrial Communications

lists the traffic classes and their relationship to the precon- Phase 3 (bridge configuration)
figured 5G QoS profiles, such as the 5GS bridge delay (i. e., Similarly, the 5GS receives the TSN configuration via the TSN
the delay between UE/DS-TT and UPF/NW-TT), and priority AF and configures the 5GS bridge as described in TS 23.502
levels. The pre-configured 5GS bridge delay can be adjusted [30]. The configuration can include scheduling informa- tion
during the second phase (e. g., taking into consideration the as specified in IEEE 802.1Qbv, PSFP information as specified
reported UE/DS-TT residence time). in IEEE 802.1Qci, and traffic forwarding information.

Phase 2 (5GS bridge capability report) Based on the PSFP and traffic forwarding information, the
In addition to the pre-configured information, some items TSN AF identifies the ingress port and egress port for a given
of 5GS bridge and port manage- ment information are also stream. From the TSN AF point of view, a 5GS TSN bridge
reported to TSN AF during PDU session establishment, as has a single NW-TT entity within a UPF whereas the NW-TT
descri- bed in TS 23.502 [30]. The SMF provides PDU ses- may have multiple ports for traffic for- warding. The UPF/
sion-related information to the TSN AF via the policy control NW-TT forwards traffic to the appropriate egress port based
function (PCF). The TSN AF takes the information described on the recei- ved traffic forwarding information. For UE-side
above to generate a 5GS bridge report for the TSN controller forwarding, the DS-TT MAC address used by the PDU session
(i. e., CNC) to use. is determined by the AF to identify the UE whose traffic is to
be routed.
A 5GS can be exposed to a CNC via the TSN AF in the form of
multiple virtual bridges. The information to be reported in- When TSN traffic arrives at the 5GS bridge it must be mapped
cludes bridge-specific information, such as bridge name, ad- to 5G QoS flows in a corres- ponding PDU session, together
dress, number of ports, and port-specific information, such with the appropriate QoS configuration, as shown in Fig-
as port number and port address. These ports are located ure 19. A 5GS can receive TSN traffic QoS information from
either at a DS-TT or the NW-TT. 5G-specific information with the CNC via the interface standardized in IEEE 802.1Q. The
respect to the mobility of these ports is not exposed. mapping table pre-configured in Phase 1 is used to identify a
suitable 5GS QoS profile. The 5GS uses this profile to estab-
The TSN AF further exposes topology information based on lish 5G QoS flows to deliver TSN traffic between the ingress
the IEEE 802.1AB Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP). This and egress ports of the 5G bridge. The filters on the UE and
allows the capture of information on devices and bridges con- UPF sides can be used to map various TSN streams to corre-
nected to the 5GS via a standardized interface. It should be sponding 5G QoS flows.
noted that information is captured via a standardized man-
agement interface as defined in IEEE 802.1AB. This facilitates A 5G QoS flow can be characterized by several parameters.
fast and seamless integration with IT management systems In general, it can be divided into either guaranteed bit rate
already in use. (GBR) or Non-GBR, depending on its QoS profile. A 5G QoS
profile consists of multiple parameters, such as allocation
The TSN AF further exposes capabilities, such as guaran- and retention priority (ARP), guaranteed flow bit rate (GFBR)
teed maximum delays between multiple ports in the system. and maximum flow bit rate (MFBR), and a 5G QoS identi- fier
This enables the CNC to schedule end-to-end traffic accord- (5QI). ARP is set to a pre-configured value for TSN commu-
ingly (in the case of a TSN centralized configuration model). nication services. MFBR and GFBR can be derived by the 5GS
Furthermore, 5G supports various traffic classes and IEEE from the PSFP information received via the AF [5].
802.1Q-based priority code points (PCPs) for traffic prioritiza-
tion. The supported traffic classes are also exposed through A 5QI itself also contains a set of QoS characteristics, e. g.,
the interface standardized in IEEE 802.1Q between the TSN resource type, packet delay bud- get (PDB), packet error rate
AF and the corresponding network management system (PER) and priority level. 3GPP has produced a list of defined,
(CNC). standardized 5QI values [5]. Some of them can be used for

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 White Paper Integration of 5G with Time-Sensitive Networking for Industrial Communications

Fig. 19: QoS mapping between TSN traffic and 5G QoS flow

5G System

5G control CNC
plane

Application UE RAN UPF Application

PDU Session
Quality of Service (QoS) flow #1

Quality of Service (QoS) flow #2

TSN TSN
Quality of Service (QoS) flow #3

Source: 5G-ACIA

industrial automation applications, for example, 5QIs num- 7.5 5G support for bounded
bered 82 to 85 with resource type delay-critical GBR (see ta- latency
ble 5.7.4-1 in [5]). However, the operator-defined 5QI values
can be used to define 5QI values that specify exactly the QoS 5G RAN with its New Radio (NR) interface possesses sev-
requirements of certain industrial applications, such as for eral functions designed to achieve low latency for selected
isochronous or cyclic traffic types. For example, the priority data flows. NR includes the flexible configuration of the or-
level of the 5QI can be mapped to a specific PCP value given thogo- nal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) signal.
in IEEE 802.1Q. The packet delay budget of a 5G QoS flow de- This enables shorter slots for a radio subframe, which ben-
scribes the latency of a packet within the 5GS during trans- efits low-latency applications. NR also introduces mini-slots,
mission, and this can be used to determine and report the where prioritized transmissions can be started sooner, fur-
5GS bridge delay. ther reducing latency.

The AF can calculate time-sensitive communication assis- To help grant priority to, and faster radio access to URLLC
tance information (TSCAI) from the PSFP information re- traffic, NR introduces the concept of preemption – where
ceived from the CNC. This TSCAI can then be provided to the URLLC data transmission can preempt ongoing non-URLLC
5G RAN. There it can be used to configure RAN connectivity transmis- sions. Additionally, NR enables very fast data pro-
to provide efficient support for the TSN streams. cessing, permitting retransmissions even within short laten-
cy bounds.

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White Paper Integration of 5G with Time-Sensitive Networking for Industrial Communications

8 5G-TSN integration options and validation

8.1 Integrated 5G-TSN architecture The 5GS is directly connected to the central management lev-
el and edge cloud, therefore providing connectivity between
Section 6.3.1 Figure 10, describes a number of TSN deploy- the machines/cells and the central management segment. In
ment options where TSN is used in three connectivity seg- the machine/cell segment, field level devices and distributed
ments of the industrial network: PLCs can also be connected via 5G connections.

• the central management segment, The roles of 5GS bridges in the industrial network are shown
• the backbone segment, and in Figure 22. When 5GS virtual bridges are used in industrial
• local machines / production cells / line segments. backbone networks as shown in Figure 22 (a), the machine/
cell #1 can use a 5G UE instead of a cable to connect to the
When a 5GS is integrated with the industrial network, the backbone. The backbone network bridges interconnect ma-
5GS can support various indus- trial use cases by providing chines/cells. Inside the local segments of machines/cells, I/O
communication services in the three segments as shown in devices are connected to the PLC via an existing wired net-
Figure 20 and Figure 21. In the backbone segment, the 5GS work; both TSN and existing fieldbus or Industrial Ethernet
provides transport services between various machines and/ protocols can be used within the machine/cell.
or cells.

Fig. 20: Adoption of 5GS in industrial automation (C2C and D2Cmp use cases)

Central room / Edge cloud

C2C D
centralized
control
CUC CNC
NW-TT
UPF#N
TSN AF(s) 5GS control plane C 5G System
backbone
NW-TT UPF#1 C2C
centralized
control C
NW-TT UPF#2

5G Radio network

UE DS-TT
D2Cmp E C2C A UE B C2C UE F D2Cmp
Distributed DS-TT DS-TT Distributed DS-TT
control control

UE UE UE UE
DS-TT DS-TT DS-TT DS-TT

UE
DS-TT
Machine #N (Mobile)
Machine #1 Machine #2 Machine #3

Source: 5G-ACIA

32
 White Paper Integration of 5G with Time-Sensitive Networking for Industrial Communications

Figure 22 (b) depicts an example where the 5GS bridge ex- The same 5GS can expose multiple TSN bridges where each
tends from the backbone into the machine/cell segments. In bridge is assigned uniquely to a 5G UPF providing connectiv-
this case, 5G also provides wireless connectivity for the devic- ity to the TSN backbone. Using the TSN AF, a 5GS is able to
es inside a local machine/cell, e. g., the PLC and I/O devices report information on the capabilities of each 5GS bridge, and
can communicate via 5G wireless connections. This means is able to receive TSN configuration data.
that 5G plays a role in supporting the communication within
a machine/cell. In general, the 5GS and IEEE TSN need to be integrated on
both the user and control planes. In the text above, this paper
Figure 22 (c) shows a variant of the scenario given in Figure introduced the options for establishing user plane connectiv-
22 (b), where the 5GS has a direct connection to the central- ity in conjunction with 5GS. In addition to these user plane
ized management/edge cloud segment. In this scenario, options, 5GS Release 16 introduced the ability to interact with
the 5GS can provide connectivity across all three segments. a centralized network configuration (CNC) via standardized
Field-level devices at local machine/cell segments can com- interfaces. To this end, a TSN application function (AF) has
municate with a central management segment entirely via been specified in 3GPP TS 23.501 [5]. This allows interaction
the 5GS. The 5GS virtual bridges can be established through with a CNC based on IEEE 802.1Qcc. The details of how the 5G
interaction of the 5G control plane with the TSN control plane. control plane supports TSN can be found in section 7.4.

Fig. 21: Adoption of 5GS in industrial automation (C2D)

Central room / Edge cloud

C2D
centralized
CUC CNC control NW-TT
UPF#N
TSN 5G System
AF(s) 5GS control plane
backbone
NW-TT UPF#1

NW-TT UPF#2

5G Radio network

UE UE UE D2Cmp
DS-TT DS-TT G DS-TT

UE G
C2D
DS-TT H
Distributed UE
I I control I DS-TT UE
H DS-TT
C2D I C2D C2D UE
Distributed Distributed centralized DS-TT Machine #N (Mobile)
control control control
Machine #1 Machine #2 Machine #3

Source: 5G-ACIA

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White Paper Integration of 5G with Time-Sensitive Networking for Industrial Communications

Fig. 22: The role of 5GS bridges in industrial automation:

a) 5GS bridge(s) are used in the backbone segment,

Central room / Edge cloud CUC

CNC

TSN backbone
Factory

AF(s)
5GS bridge #1

TSN /LegacyEthernet bridge

Machine / Machine / Machine /
5GS virtual bridge cell #1 cell #2 cell #N

PLC

Field level devices

b) 5GS bridges are used in both the backbone and local machine/cell,

Central room / Edge cloud CUC

CNC

TSN backbone
Factory

AF(s) AF(s)
TSN /LegacyEthernet bridge 5GS bridge #1 5GS bridge #N

5GS virtual bridge

PLC

Field level devices Machine /cell #1 Machine / cell #N

c) 5GS bridges are used in all three segments

Central room / Edge cloud

CUC
CNC
Factory

AF(s) 5GS bridge #1 TSN backbone 5GS bridge #N AF(s)

TSN /LegacyEthernet bridge

5GS virtual bridge

PLC

Field level devices Machine / cell #1 Machine / cell #N

Source: 5G-ACIA

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 White Paper Integration of 5G with Time-Sensitive Networking for Industrial Communications

As described in section 6.3.1, the definition of and interwork- acts as an IEEE 802.1AS compatible time-aware system, can
ing between multiple TSN domains is ongoing work on IEC/ support time synchronization across multiple time domains
IEEE 60802. Interaction of the 5GS with TSN has been spe- or within a single time domain.
cified by 3GPP (see section 7.4) and does not preclude support
for multiple TSN domains. This would need further validation For the global time domain that spans the entire factory, 5G
when specification work on IEC/IEEE 60802 has advan- ced can distribute the global timing information to any machine
further. / cell / line or device via a UE. For the three working clock
domains, the timing information can either be distributed in-
side a machine / cell / line using the existing wired network,
e. g., as shown in working domains 1 and 2 in Figure 23, or
8.2 Time synchronization in an by means of 5G wireless connectivity between a sync master
integrated 5G-TSN architecture and sync devices, e. g., as shown in working clock domain 3.

Section 6.3.2, Figure 12, depicts an example of time synchro- With regard to the TSN time domain, when there is a need
nization in a factory. In this section, where 5G is integrated for TSN scheduled traffic (IEEE 802.1Qbv), e. g., for isochro-
with TSN infrastructures, Figure 23 shows how time synchro- nous applications, the application and TSN bridges and 5GS
nization is applied in the 5G-TSN network. The 5GS, which virtual bridges need to be synchronized to a common working

Fig. 23: Time synchronization in a 5G-TSN integrated network

“Global” time domain

Central room / Edge cloud

CUC CNC NW-TT

UPF#N
TSN backbone AF(s) 5GS control plane 5G System

TSN time NW-TT UPF#1 5G time domain

domain
NW-TT UPF#2

5G Radio network

UE UE UE UE UE UE UE
DS-TT DS-TT DS-TT DS-TT DS-TT DS-TT DS-TT

Working clock Working clock Working clock

domain 1 domain 2 domain 3 Machine #N (Mobile)
Machine #1 Machine #2 Machine #3

Source: 5G-ACIA

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White Paper Integration of 5G with Time-Sensitive Networking for Industrial Communications

clock. In Figure 23, this is indicated as a TSN time domain, Whether all or just a subset of these features are used de-
which may in practice be identical to one of the working clock pends upon the actual application and its requirements, as
domains [33]. shown in Table 1 and Table 2. However, as described in section
7, the 5GS is capable of supporting all these features.

For time synchronization, the grandmaster clock is typically

8.3 5G-TSN integration for directly connected to the TSN backbone, and connects to the
industrial automation 5GS via the UPF. TSN nodes connected to the TSN backbone
use cases via a 5G UE are synchronized to this grandmaster clock via 5G
wireless connectivity. This is supported by Release 16 of the
Section 6 describes various use cases for TSN communication 5G standard. Where a grandmaster clock is connected via a
in a factory. Figure 20 and Figure 21 show how these indus- 5G UE to the TSN backbone and to any other TSN sync receiv-
trial automation control use cases are implemented when er, time synchronization would need to be provided via the 5G
5G is introduced into the industrial network. The following uplink. This is supported as of Release 17 of the 5G standard.
sections describe those use cases by highlighting the inter-
actions with the 5GS. Another example of C2C communication with distributed
controllers is depicted as TSN stream (B) in Figure 20. In
contrast to TSN stream (A), both controllers are connected
8.3.1 Controller-to-controller to the TSN backbone via a 5G wireless link. This means the
5GS assumes the role of the TSN backbone in its entirety. In
Controller-to-controller (C2C) communication is the commu- this case, TSN communication via the 5GS bridge takes place
nication that takes place bet- ween a control entity for a ma- between two device-side TSN ports (at differing UEs) of the
chine, production cell or line with another control entity, as 5GS bridge. This entails two wireless transmission hops.
introduced in section 6. C2C communication in an example in- These two wireless hops introduce a larger bridge delay, and
tegrated 5G-TSN factory network is depicted in Figure 20. The also increased synchronization inaccuracy for TSN stream (B)
example TSN stream (A) shows C2C communication between between two device-side ports, compared to TSN stream (A).
distributed controllers. The controller in machine #1 uses leg- However, apart from this larger bridge delay that is report-
acy industrial networking based on, e. g., fieldbus technology. ed by the 5GS to the CNC as part of the bridge capability in-
It is also connected via a wired TSN connection to the back- formation, no additional TSN capabilities are required from
bone network. The second controller is connected to the TSN the 5GS compared to TSN stream (A). This example of TSN
backbone network via a 5GS bridge, where the Ethernet-TSN stream (B) corresponds to the logical bridge shown in Figure
port connecting the second controller is provided via a 5G 22 (a) where two machines/cells are connected to the same
UE. The TSN connection via the 5GS is therefore between a 5GS bridge. TSN communication between two UEs via the 5G
network-side TSN port (at the UPF) of the 5GS bridge and a network as in TSN stream (B), i. e., between two device-side
device-side TSN port (at the UE) of the 5GS bridge. The con- Ethernet ports located at differing UEs and connected via the
nectivity corresponds to the connectivity between two con- 5G network, will be enhanced in Release 17 of the 5G standard
trollers in machine 1 and machine N, as shown in Figure 22 (a). by improving TSN stream forwarding within the 5GS.

The TSN capabilities for C2C communication are listed in Ta- The introduction of advanced networking capabilities based
ble 2. These include support for IEEE 802.1Q priorities, IEEE on TSN and 5G, in conjunction with advances in small-scale
802.1AS time synchronization, IEEE 802.1CB FRER, IEEE cloud computing platforms that enable on-premises compu-
802.1Qbv transmission gate scheduling, IEEE 802.1Qci per- ting in an edge cloud, is driving the relocation of industrial
stream filtering and policing, and configuration of the 5GS controllers from the shop floor to a central point. In other
TSN bridge according to IEEE 802.1Qcc. words, control based on a large number of industrial control-

36
 White Paper Integration of 5G with Time-Sensitive Networking for Industrial Communications

lers distributed across the shop floor can be transformed to ing of processes and assets. Many new types of sensors are
central control with many diverse industrial controllers mov- being introduced, and/or existing equipment is being retro-
ing to a central room in the factory. The controllers may also fitted with data collectors. For many information sources,
be virtualized and operated on the edge cloud platform. C2C wired connectivity to a TSN backbone is not easily available.
communication between two centralized controllers in a cen- 5G introduces significant flexibility when connecting data
tral room or edge cloud is depicted by TSN stream (D) in Fig- collectors and equipment to the edge cloud for D2Cmp com-
ure 20. Communication takes place locally via the backplane munication. This is shown in TSN stream in Figure 20. A de-
of the edge cloud platform or via the TSN backbone connect- vice can be connected to a device-side TSN port of the 5GS
ing multiple controllers within the central room. In this case, bridge at the 5G UE to provide TSN connectivity to the edge
no communication over the 5G network is required. If one of cloud, which itself is connected to a network-side port of the
the controllers is on the shop floor in the machine/cell, and 5GS bridge. The required TSN capabilities, as given in Table 2,
the other controller is in the central room or edge cloud, C2C are IEEE 802.1Q prioritization and IEEE 802.1Qci per-stream
communication takes place as shown as TSN stream (C) in filtering and policing. As D2Cmp traffic has lower criticality
Figure 20. The central controller is directly connected to the than most C2C and C2D traffic, traffic prioritization and polic-
5GS bridge via a network-side port at the UPF and a distribut- ing are essential to ensure that large volumes of D2Cmp traf-
ed controller is connected to the 5GS bridge via a device-side fic do not interfere with transmission of other, more critical
port at the UE. In the simplest case, the two controllers are traffic. Redundant transmission according to IEEE 802.1CB
directly connected via a single TSN bridge, which is the 5GS FRER may optionally be provided. Time synchronization can
bridge as shown in Figure 22 (c). 5G-TSN communication re- be provided to D2Cmp devices if synchronization is needed by
quirements for TSN stream (C) are identical to those of TSN the applications.
stream (A), as described above.

8.3.3 Controller-to-device
8.3.2 Device-to-compute
Controller-to-device (C2D) communication takes place be-
Device-to-compute (D2Cmp) communication is used, e. g., tween controllers and field devices. C2D traffic is typically cy-
by applications that monitor the production process, capture clic or isochronous with low data rates and strict delay bounds
maintenance information and capture data for analytics. The as given in Table 1. C2D communication is highly critical. In
communication path is in most cases from a large number some cases, C2D communication may include time-sensitive
of sensors, machines and controllers to a central computing high-rate data transmission to the controller, e. g., when im-
platform located, e. g., in an edge cloud. Traffic is typically aging and machine vision data is utilized in the controller, as
asymmetric to the central location, and it includes configu- described in the example in section 6.1. C2D communication
ration data transmitted to devices and equipment. The type is shown in Figure 21. Traffic flows (I) correspond to C2D com-
of traffic can vary from low data volumes for sensor reports munication based on local legacy fieldbus networks. Control
to high-data-rate video imaging. D2Cmp communication is de- centralized, i. e., the controllers are in close proximity to
is characterized by low and medium criticality and is not the field devices.
delay-bounded, as displayed in Table 1 and Table 2. D2Cmp
communication is shown in Figure 20 with TSN streams (E) With the introduction of TSN and 5G, critical latency-bound-
and (F). For TSN stream (E), a data source is connected to ed communication is achievable over a converged network
the edge cloud via the TSN backbone, and 5G does not play with a large mixture of traffic types and over larger distances.
any role in communication. For D2Cmp, the number of data This lessens the need to install the controller locally on the
sources that provide infor- mation can be very large. The shop floor, and enables it to be moved to a more convenient
number of sources is increasing significantly with the intro- location, such as a central room. Controllers may even be vir-
duction of the IIoT, which entails, e. g., large-scale monitor- tualized and operated on an edge cloud platform. This entails

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White Paper Integration of 5G with Time-Sensitive Networking for Industrial Communications

the transition from a distributed C2D control architecture to- external perspective of the 5GS bridge, as depicted in Figure
wards a centralized C2D architecture, as shown in Figure 21. 22 (c), there is no difference between TSN streams (G) and
TSN stream (H) depicts communication between a central- (H). From the 5GS internal view, a difference is that for TSN
ized controller in the edge cloud and a field device on the shop stream both the ingress and egress ports are device-side
floor. The device is connected to the 5GS via the device-side ports provided by 5G UEs. Commu- nication between these
TSN port of the 5GS bridge at a 5G UE, and the controller is port pairs within the 5GS passes from one UE via the 5G net-
connected to the network-side TSN port of the 5GS bridge at work back to the other UE, and is twice transmitted over the
a UPF. Additionally, for certain extremely critical applications 5G wireless link; in the context of 5G, this type of communica-
(e. g., for safety), distributed C2D can still remain at the local tion is referred to as UE-to-UE. For UE-to-UE communication,
machine/ cell, as shown for machine #3. corresponding 5GS-internal forwarding capability is needed,
as well as the capability to accurately determine the port-to-
Table 2 lists the TSN features needed for C2D communica- port latency which comprises two in-sequence QoS flows over
tion. These include support for IEEE 802.1Q prioritization and the two radio links. Functionality for time-sensitive UE-to-UE
IEEE 802.1Qci per-stream filtering and policing. Optionally communication for TSN will be improved in Release 17. From
redundant transmission via IEEE 802.1CB FRER may also the perspective of the CNC and the external TSN network,
be desired. Synchronous cyclic traffic types and isochro- there is no difference between TSN communication over the
nous traffic types also require scheduled TSN traffic accord- 5GS bridge via two UEs as shown for TSN stream (G), or be-
ing to IEEE 802.1Qbv. This requires time synchronization of tween a UE and the network as shown for TSN stream (H).
end-stations and bridges according to IEEE 802.1AS. The However, port-to-port latency for communication between
bridges are configured by a CNC according to IEEE 802.1Qcc. two device-side ports of the 5GS bridge is greater, due to the
For IEEE 802.1Qci per-stream filtering and policing, and for two wireless links, compared to port-to-port latency between
IEEE 802.1Qbv traffic scheduling, the corresponding configu- a device-side port and a network-side port.
ration data is received from the CNC by the 5GS as described
in section 7.4. It is important that the 5GS can provide the CNC
with precise information on latencies between the port pairs 8.3.4 Summary of 5G TSN validation
of the 5GS bridge in the bridge capability report to enable
CNC TSN time scheduling along the path of the critical TSN A 5GS can be regarded by an external TSN network as a set
streams. The 5G standard speci- fies how IEEE 802.1Qbv and of virtual TSN-capable 5GS bridges. A 5GS bridge interfaces
IEEE 802.1Qci information is distributed via internal signal- with the external TSN network via TSN translator functions,
ing from the TSN AF within the 5GS to the ports at NW-side and the internal functionality of the 5GS for time-sensitive
and device-side TSN translators. The implementation details communication is not exposed to the external network. A
of specific IEEE 802.1Qci per-stream filtering and policing, as 5GS bridge provides Ethernet-TSN connectivity via ports in
well as the IEEE 802.1Qbv traffic scheduling are not specified the same way a wired TSN bridge does. Some of the ports
by the 3GPP standard; these are specified in IEEE 802.1Q and of a 5GS bridge are on the network side, i. e., provided by the
it is the responsibility of UE and UPF equipment suppliers to UPF gateway of the 5GS. Other ports of the 5GS are on the
provide them. device side, i. e., are provided by wireless 5G devices (UEs).
TSN communication is possible via any of the port pairs of
5G wireless connectivity can also be utilized in a distributed the 5GS bridge.
control architecture, where a controller is placed locally in the
machine or cell. It may be challenging to connect devices via A 5GS bridge provides a management function (the 5G TSN
cables, e. g., due to the complexity of machine movements or AF) that interacts with a CNC of the TSN network (or network
due to devices being added to an existing installation; such domain). Via this interface a 5GS bridge reports its capabili-
devices can instead be connected via 5G. C2D communication ties to the CNC and receives 5GS bridge configuration data
in this case is shown as TSN stream (G) in Figure 21. From the from the CNC. This interaction between the 5GS bridge and

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 White Paper Integration of 5G with Time-Sensitive Networking for Industrial Communications

the CNC is according to IEEE 802.1Qcc as is the case for in- uration to the ports at the 5G UPF and 5G UE. When PSFP
ter- actions between TSN bridges and a CNC. The CNC config- is configured by the CNC for the 5GS bridge, the filtering
ures frame forwarding for the 5GS bridge, as well as the sup- and policing needs to be performed in accordance with IEEE
ported TSN features, e. g., per-stream filtering and policing 802.1Qci. Execution of PSFP at the user plane is currently not
(IEEE 802.1Qci) and time scheduling for traffic classes (IEEE mandated by 3GPP specifications.
802.1Qbv).
An optional TSN feature to increase reliability in TSN trans-
The 5GS provides the features and capabilities needed to mission is seamless redundancy by means of FRER according
support TSN traffic, as summarized below. to IEEE 802.1CB, where frames of selected TSN streams are
replicated and transmitted over two or more maximally diver-
5G introduces functionality for ultra-reliable and low-latency gent paths; duplicate messages are discarded at the receiv-
communication. In general, 5G supports retransmissions to ing end of the redundant paths. FRER can be applied via the
provide very reliable data delivery over the wireless link. How- 5GS, where the redundant streams are transmitted over di-
ever, retransmissions can introduce increased latencies and vergent paths within the 5GS, by using, e. g., different UPFs,
jitter. Ultra-reliable communication for 5G means that robust and possibly different base stations and UEs.
transmission modes and configurations have been specified
to increase the probability of successful transmissions within For isochronous or synchronous cyclic traffic types, TSN
a specified delay bound. In addition, 5G introduces very low scheduled traffic according to IEEE 802.1Qbv is applied,
transmission latencies. Support for QoS is an inbuilt function where the schedules for all bridges on the path are config-
of the 5GS. Different traffic flows can be separated into dif- ured by the CNC. The 5GS bridge receives the transmission
fering QoS flows. This allows prioritization of specific traffic gate schedules from the CNC. 5G internal signaling has been
types. In addition, various transmission modes can be con- standardized to forward the transmission gate configuration
figured to match the QoS requirements of the traffic. For to the egress ports at the UPF and UE. Outbound data trans-
time-sensitive traffic types, a 5GS can provide delay-bound- mission at the egress port is defined upon implementation to
ed low-latency transmission, i. e., it prioritizes resource allo- ensure compliance with the transmission gate schedules for
cation for those types over less critical traffic. Traffic separa- the various traffic classes specified by IEEE 802.1Qbv.
tion and prioritization can be configured on the basis of the
PCP of Ethernet/TSN traffic defined in IEEE 802.1Q. 5G supports all TSN features identified thus far as relevant
to industrial automation as given in Table 1 and Table 2. In
5G supports time synchronization via gPTP according to IEEE section 8.3, this paper described how various TSN features
802.1AS. This means that end-stations and/or TSN bridges are applied to different industrial automation use cases, and
can be synchronized via a 5GS bridge to a grandmaster clock has described interaction between 5G and the TSN network
with a time error that can be limited to 900ns. For industrial in practical deployments. By carefully analyzing the TSN use
automation, a TSN network is expected to support time syn- cases, this paper was able to demonstrate that 5G has all
chronization for at least four clock domains [33]. A 5GS can go essential capabilities requi- red to interwork with TSN for
beyond this to support synchronization for up to 128 separate industrial automation. This enables the benefits of wireless
gPTP time domains simultaneously [3]. This is possible irre- 5G connectivity to be harnessed in industrial 5G-TSN deploy-
spective of whether the grandmaster clock is connected to ments, and is only limited by achievable 5G performance,
the 5GS on the network side or via a 5G mobile device. e. g., extremely low latencies.

TSN bridges can apply per-stream filtering and policing (IEEE

802.1Qci) to protect the network from anomalous traffic. The
5GS receives the PSFP configuration from the CNC. 5G pro-
cedures have been standardized to provide the PSFP config-

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White Paper Integration of 5G with Time-Sensitive Networking for Industrial Communications

9 Conclusion
TSN is recognized as the primary networking technology for
industrial automation in the future, as specified in the open
standards of IEEE 802.1. In this paper, the main TSN features
are described in section 5, including TSN traffic schedul-
ing (IEEE 802.1Qbv), per-stream filtering and policing (IEEE
802.1Qci), time synchronization (IEEE 802.1AS), frame repli-
cation and elimination for reliability (IEEE 802.1CB), and TSN
network configuration (IEEE 802.1Qcc). Section 5 also ad-
dresses the work-in-progress in IEC/IEEE 60802 on defi- ning
a TSN profile for industrial automation. Section 6 describes
typical use cases for TSN in industrial automation. It also
identifies different traffic types and the corresponding com-
munication requirements.

This paper shows that significant benefits can be achieved

for industrial use cases with the introduction of TSN and 5G
wireless communication, e. g., due to increased flexibility in
the deployment of industrial equipment and the network.
This requires 5G to provide robust support for Ethernet-TSN
communication services and interworking with wired TSN
networks. The standardized capabilities of 5G required to
support TSN services are described in section 7, based on
3GPP Release 16 and the enhancements of Release 17. An in-
tegra- ted 5G and TSN network design is presented in section
8. The integration of 5G and TSN connectivity is investigated
for various use case categories, i. e., controller-to-controller,
controller-to-device and device-to-compute communication.

The main finding of this paper is that 5G has been standard-

ized with all the necessary support to seamlessly integrate
with industrial TSN networks. However, the future evolution
of TSN will have to be matched by 5G enhancements in com-
ing releases.

In particular, the 5G standard must remain aligned with the

development of the industrial automation profile for TSN,
which is taking place within the scope of IEC/IEEE 60802, to
ensure adequate support for interworking in seamlessly inte-
grated 5G-TSN networks of the future.

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 White Paper Integration of 5G with Time-Sensitive Networking for Industrial Communications

10 Key terms and definitions

3GPP Clock synchronicity
The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) is a collabo- The maximum permissible time offset within a synchroni-
rative project that brings together standardization organi- zation domain between the clocks of a sync master and any
zations from around the world to create globally accepted sync device [3].
specifications for mobile networks. As its name implies, it
was first created to establish such specifications for the third Legacy Ethernet bridge
generation (3G) of mobile communication systems. It has A bridge that is compliant to IEEE 802.1Q-2014 or earlier. It is
continued its work for subsequent generations, including the a basic Ethernet bridge without TSN features such as those
one considered here, the fifth generation (5G). defined in IEEE 802.1 Qbv, Qci, Qbu.

5G-ACIA TSN terms and definitions can be found at IEEE 802.1 [17] and
5G-ACIA is the leading global organization for shaping and IEC/IEEE 60802 [10][33].
promoting Industrial 5G.

IEEE
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Stan-
dards Association (IEEE-SA) is a leading consensus building
organization that nurtures, develops, and advances global
technologies. IEEE SA develops standards in various areas,
including Ethernet, bridged networks and TSN.

5G system
A 5G system consists of a 5G core network (5GC), a next-gen-
eration radio access network (NG-RAN) and 5G user equip-
ment (UE), such as mobile devices. The 5GC includes user
plane functions (UPF) and control plane network functions,
such as an access and mobility management function (AMF),
a session management function (SMF) and a policy control
function (PCF).

Protocol data unit (PDU) session

Communication association in a 5G network for communica-
tion between a UE and a data network.

TSN translator (TT)

A 5G system function defined in 3GPP [5], located at the edge
of the 5G network, to inter- act with external TSN nodes. It
includes both control plane TTs and user plane TTs. On the
control plane, the TT is a 5G core network application func-
tion (TSN AF) which is used to interact with TSN control and
management, e. g., the CNC. On the user plane, there is a de-
vice-side TT (DS-TT) and network-side TT (NW-TT). These are
located on the UE side and on the UPF side respectively.

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White Paper Integration of 5G with Time-Sensitive Networking for Industrial Communications

11 Acronyms and abbreviations

3GPP 3rd Generation Partnership Project NMS Network management system
5G 5th generation of cellular networks NPN Non-public network
5GC 5G core network NR New radio
5GS 5G system NW-TT Network-side TSN translator
5QI 5G QoS identifier OPC Open Platform Communication
AMF Access and mobility management OT Operational technology
function PAR Project authorization request
C2C Controller-to-controller PCF Policy control function
C2D Controller-to-device PCP Priority code point
C/M Controller / master PDU Protocol data unit
CN Core network PLC Programmable logic controller
CNC Central network configuration PSFP Per-stream filtering and policing
CUC Central user configuration PTP Precision Time Protocol
D2Cmp Device to compute QoS Quality of service
DS-TT Device-side TSN translator RAN Radio access network
ERP Enterprise resource planning RAP Resource Allocation Protocol
FLC Field-Level Communications S/A Sensor / actuator
FRER Frame replication and elimination for SBA Service-based architecture
reliability SMF Session management function
gNB Next-generation node B (5G NR base SNMP Simple Network Management Protocol
station) SRP Stream Reservation Protocol
gPTP Generalized Precision Time Protocol TR Technical report
GM Grandmaster TS Technical specification
GW Gateway TSCAI Time-sensitive communication
ICT Information and communications assistance information
technology TSN Time-sensitive networking
IIoT Industrial Internet of Things TSN AF TSN application function
L2C Line controller-to-controller TT TSN translator
LAN Local area network UE User equipment
LRP Link-local Registration Protocol UPF User plane function
MES Manufacturing execution system URLLC Ultra-reliable and low-latency
MIB Management information base communication
MRP Multiple Registration Protocol VLAN Virtual LAN
MMRP Multiple MAC Registration Protocol YANG Yet Another Next Generation (data
MVRP Multiple VLAN Registration Protocol modelling language)
MSRP Multiple Stream Registration Protocol 5G-ACIA 5G Alliance for Connected Industries
NF Network function and Automation
NG-RAN Next generation – radio access network

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 White Paper Integration of 5G with Time-Sensitive Networking for Industrial Communications

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 White Paper Integration of 5G with Time-Sensitive Networking for Industrial Communications

5G-ACIA White Paper

Integration of 5G with Time-Sensitive
Networking for Industrial Communications

Contact
5G Alliance for Connected Industries and
Automation (5G-ACIA), a Working Party of ZVEI
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Phone: +49 69 6302-209
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Email: [email protected]
www.5g-acia.org

Published by
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Electronic Manufacturers’ Association
5G Alliance for Connected Industries and
Automation (5G-ACIA), a Working Party of ZVEI
www.zvei.org

February 2021
Design: COBRAND Berlin

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White Paper Integration of 5G with Time-Sensitive Networking for Industrial Communications

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 White Paper Integration of 5G with Time-Sensitive Networking for Industrial Communications

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