TimeAnalyzer in real-time networks

Project Information

TCN TimeAnalyzer

Grant agreement ID: 662990

DOI 10.3030/662990

Project closed

EC signature date 13 January 2015

Start date 1 February 2015

End date 31 January 2016

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies - Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)

Total cost € 71 429,00

EU contribution € 50 000,00

Coordinated by

TIME-CRITICAL NETWORKS AB
Sweden

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - TCN TimeAnalyzer (TimeAnalyzer in real-time networks)

Reporting period: 2015-02-01 to 2016-01-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

This is the final report from the feasibility study performed by Time Critical Networks (TCN). The work has been funded by the EU H2020 SME Instruments programme. The feasibility study has been carried out during 2015 and 2016.

The goals set up for the project are valid and should remain for the next step, the implementation of the product TCN TimeAnalyzer. TCN studied how to integrate TCN TimeAnalyzer into the SDN architecture with the aim of contributing to the advanced orchestrator algorithms for automated creation and deployment of service chains and dynamic optimization of service quality. Thereby, the 5G network can guarantee the real-time requirements of the most time-sensitive network applications. TCN believes that TCN TimeAnalyzer can be developed into a key component in the orchestration layer in such an architecture.

Within the feasibility study (phase 1 of H2020) TCN has established an unique contact with Ericsson Research 5G Transport Lab, SICS and Acreo (Swedish ICT Research) where they participated closely with surveying Use Cases and requirements. They have also been reviewing this report and are interested to continue the cooperation in a possible phase 2 of the H2020 SME Instruments programme.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Established work group with Ericsson, Acreo and KTH.
Established contact with SICS work in SDN.
In close contact with Acreo, TCN recieved support through coaching activities as offered within H2020.

TCN has organized a number of technical workshops and received valuable inputs from both industry partners (Ericsson, ABB) as well as academic partners (ACREO and SICS). During the workshops, a number of use cases have been presented and investigated. TCN have chosen two concrete use cases in the area of Real-time remote control and operation:

1. Video streaming for public safety applications and
2. Remote controlled excavator.

Even though these two application use cases are of different type, they have very similar requirements on short latency, high bandwidth and time-critical communication.

TCN TimeAnalyzer is an engine that computes the worst case delay bounds for all the high-priority traffic traversing the network. In this framework, TCN TimeAnalyzer will act as an admission control module and scheduler, which determines whether or not the network can provide the requested services based on the current workload and previous commitments. If the network has the capability of guaranteeing all requested communication requirements, it will automatically find the most suitable path through the network and assign priorities for different communication flows.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The goals set up for the project are valid and should remain for the next step, the implementation of the product TCN TimeAnalyzer. Going forward, TCN will investigate further the dynamic connection management scheme as outlined earlier in this report. TCN will also study how to integrate TCN TimeAnalyzer into the SDN architecture in more detail. For instance, a real-time channel can be used to realize a network slice or in conjunction with network service chains to guarantee real-time requirements of the most time-sensitive network applications. TCN believe that TCN TimeAnalyzer can be developed into a key component in the orchestration layer in such an architecture, handling admission control of time-sensitive flows, resource allocation, QoS guarantees and monitoring etc. The basis for performing these task is the ability to predict and monitor network delay using methods such as schedulability analysis and probabilistic approaches. This work will preferably be conducted together with the pre-study partners we already have on-going dialogue with, i.e. Ericsson, SICS, Acreo and Victoria ICT . Below, we sketch out a preliminary and very rough working plan and roadmap:

Off-line simulation (start of the project)
Method: Simulation by using TCN Ethernet Simulator™
Max size of network segment: < 100 nodes
Target calculation time: minutes/hours
On-line worst-case calculation (One year into project)
Method: worst-case analysis + simulation
Max size of network segment: < 10 nodes
Target calculation time: minutes
On-line worst-case calculation in Ericsson lab (Year 2 in project)
Method: worst-case analysis
Max size of network segment: < 100-1000 nodes
Target calculation time: seconds.

Architecture with TCN TimeAnalyzer