Demonstration of the Coexistence of Multiple Industrial Ethernet by Protocol Softwarization in Edge Computing

In order to improve the flexibility and compatibility of industrial networks, there is ongoing research on the software-based implementation of industrial networks. The coexistence of multiple industrial protocols on the same industrial network is a challenge due to differences in QoS requirements and scheduling algorithms. In this study, we propose a method for the coexistence of multiple industrial protocols by introducing a protocol management application that manages the sending and receiving of packets in control from general-purpose computing resources. The proposed method is implemented and tested in a robot arm-based experiment. The proposed method achieved simultaneous operation of the robot arm and motor using different protocols. The proposed method could complete to control in 6.6 s even in a high-network-load environment, compared to the benchmark method, which took 256 s. In addition, a protocol switching experiment confirms that control could be continued without interruption even when the protocol was switched.