CN113709822A

CN113709822A - Device for realizing industrial automation by mobile communication network and operation method thereof

Info

Publication number: CN113709822A
Application number: CN202011288663.XA
Authority: CN
Inventors: 陈家榜; 王健豪; 曾昱盛; 潘裕荏
Original assignee: Adlink Technology Inc
Current assignee: Adlink Technology Inc
Priority date: 2020-05-22
Filing date: 2020-11-17
Publication date: 2021-11-26

Abstract

The invention provides a device for realizing industrial automation by a mobile communication network and an operation method thereof. The device for realizing industrial automation by using the mobile communication network is user equipment which comprises a data distribution service system and can perform real-time mutual networking and cooperative communication with other devices through the mobile communication network. The data distribution service system transmits the data packets containing QoS parameters to the packet filter for filtering through a real-time publish-subscribe protocol interface, and then maps the data packets to the load or packet flow in the mobile communication network to apply the same QoS service.

Description

Device for realizing industrial automation by mobile communication network and operation method thereof

Technical Field

The present invention relates to an industrial automation device and an operation method thereof, and more particularly, to an industrial automation device and an operation method thereof using a mobile communication network.

Background

With the Internet of Things (IoT) technology starting the fourth industrial revolution, and stepping from the traditional industrial automation into highly automated intelligent manufacturing based on the Internet of Things, it has been a necessary construction of future factories to go through Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMR) and human-machine Cooperation (COBOT) manufacturing, and when various automated networking production devices are introduced into modern factories, the demand of the network system required by factory digitization and the standard of the Internet common interface between the machines will be increased accordingly, so as to provide a system architecture with instant control and reliable communication.

The concept of the future factory is based on intelligent manufacturing as the core, and uses information and communication technologies such as network, cloud computing, sensing, etc. to realize real-time management (virtual-real integration) of the manufacturing factory domain, machine and process, wherein the most important thing is the communication environment and communication protocol standard used by the internet of things, such as the current 4 th generation (4G) wireless access and core network (e.g. Long-Term Evolution (LTE)) providing high peak data transmission rate, low delay, improved system capacity and low operation cost brought by simple network architecture, but the next generation (5G) New wireless (New Radio, NR) network can provide higher data transmission rate and capacity, simultaneously can support various communication requirements from human, machine to sensor, and can provide End-to-End (End to End) of 10 to 50 milliseconds (ms) while ensuring high reliability, E2E) delay and Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees.

The open communication protocol standard can make various controllers, sensors and other devices have networking communication capability more easily, a new generation Robot Operating System (Robot Operating System2, ROS2) provides a middle Layer (Middleware Layer) for high-efficiency Data mutual transmission, which has gradually become an Application Programming Interface (API) standard of an intelligent Robot, and provides a distributed/asynchronous Data exchange mechanism with a Data Distribution Service (DDS) having high Service quality control capability, so that future plant internal machines and tools have real-time communication, expandability, high-reliability Data exchange and sharing, high performance, interoperability and dynamic discovery capability, such as static equipment and mobile machines in a plant, even human-computer interfaces and sensors, etc., can utilize the protocol transmission of an ROS2 platform to introduce a Distribution (DDS) and subscription (Subscribe) mechanism for real-time mutual networking and cooperative communication, and the data are transmitted to a cloud end and are stored and analyzed by artificial intelligence, so that various mobile robots in the factory are put into production, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) take parts, Automatic Guided Vehicles (AGVs) carry logistics, automatic warehousing and the like are all completed in unmanned wireless or man-machine cooperation environments, and various application scenes of intelligent manufacturing in future factories are realized.

Therefore, the DDS specification defines a more comprehensive time-dependent QoS management control strategy, including transmission bandwidth, transmission delay, packet loss rate of data, delay jitter, etc., how to optimize the DDS QoS introduced by the ROS2 platform in a wireless communication environment, provide guarantee of service quality, and reasonably plan and allocate network resources, so as to efficiently utilize the network resources and maintain the overall network performance, which is an important subject to be improved in the field for a long time.

Disclosure of Invention

The main objective of the present invention is to enable the ue collocated with data distribution service to perform real-time inter-networking and cooperative communication via mobile communication network (such as 4G, LTE or 5G system network), the data distribution service includes QoS Profiles (QoS Profiles), can be used to set QoS parameters, and the QoS parameters are transmitted from the data distribution service to the transport stream template (TFT) or Packet Filter (Packet Filter) for filtering through the real-time publish-subscribe protocol interface (RTPS Port), and then mapped to various bearers or Packet flows (such as IP Packet flows or QoS Packet flows) in the mobile communication network through the Modem, Evolved Packet Core (EPC) or Core Network (CN), the same QoS service is applied, and the service quality can be improved by measures of ensuring the transmission bandwidth, reducing the transmission time delay, reducing the packet loss rate and the time delay jitter of data and the like in the mobile communication network.

For a better understanding of the nature and technical content of the present invention, reference should be made to the following detailed description of the invention and the accompanying drawings, which are provided for illustration purposes only and are not intended to limit the scope of the invention.

Drawings

In order to more clearly illustrate the embodiments of the present invention or the technical solutions in the prior art, the drawings required to be used in the description of the embodiments will be briefly introduced below, and it is obvious that the drawings in the following description are only some embodiments of the present invention, and for those skilled in the art, other drawings can be obtained according to these drawings without inventive labor.

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of an environment for implementing industrial automation by using a mobile communication network and a method thereof according to the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of an architecture embodiment of a UE according to the present invention;

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of an embodiment applied to a 4G environment according to the present invention;

FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating QoS mapping for 4G environment according to the present invention;

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram of an embodiment applied to a 5G environment according to the present invention; and

fig. 6 is a flowchart illustrating an operating method of a ue according to the present invention.

Reference numerals

100 mobile communication network

200, 300 user equipment

210 processor

220 mobile communication interface

230I/O interface

240 storage medium

250 management program

251 operating system

252 data distribution service

P-GW gateway

S-GW service gateway

IP flow 1-5 IP packet flow

SDF1 ~ 4 service data flow template

CN core network

PDN, DN data packet network

gNB access node

S610 to S630

Detailed Description

To achieve the above objects and advantages, the present invention provides a technical means and a structure thereof, wherein the structure and function of the preferred embodiment of the present invention are described in detail as follows.

Referring to fig. 1, fig. 1 is a schematic view of an environment for implementing an industrial automation device and an operating method thereof by using a mobile communication network according to an embodiment of the present invention, which includes User Equipments (UEs) 200, 300 communicatively connected via a mobile communication network 100, wherein the UEs 200, 300 are the devices for implementing the industrial automation, and thus, the UEs 200 and 300 can rapidly exchange commands or information via the mobile communication network 100 and perform corresponding actions according to the received commands. In addition, the

user equipments

200 and 300 do not need to be connected through a physical cable for communication through the mobile communication network 100, so that the

user equipments

200 and 300 are not limited by the environment and have more flexible configuration and usage, thereby achieving the purpose of optimizing industrial automation.

In one embodiment, one of the

user devices

200, 300 may be implemented as a robotic controller, and the other of the

user devices

200, 300 may be implemented as a robotic arm, automated guided vehicle, processing machine, smart glasses, drone, or other automated device communicatively coupled to the mobile communications network 100.

In one embodiment, the automation user equipment (e.g., 200) implemented with the robot controller may be communicatively coupled to a plurality of automation user equipment 300, and the invention is not so limited.

For further explanation of the ue of the present invention, please refer to fig. 2, in which the ue 200 is taken as an example for explanation, but the present invention is not limited thereto.

The user equipment 200 at least includes a processor 210, a mobile communication interface 220, at least one input/output interface 230 and a storage medium 240, wherein the processor 210 is electrically connected to the mobile communication interface 220, the at least one input/output interface 230 and the storage medium 240.

The mobile communication interface 220 is, for example, a communication interface conforming to the fourth generation mobile communication standard and the fifth generation mobile communication standard, so as to be communicatively connected to the mobile communication network 100 shown in fig. 1. In one embodiment, the mobile communication interface 220 is implemented by, for example, a communication chip including a mobile communication circuit, and the invention is not limited thereto.

The at least one input/output interface 230 is used for electrically connecting with other external devices. In one embodiment, the at least one input/output interface 230 is, for example, a robust USB interface, a pci interface, a CANbus interface, a DI/DO interface, an I2C interface, etc., and the invention is not limited thereto. One skilled in the art can adjust the number and type of the input/output interfaces 230 according to the type and application area of the user equipment 200.

The storage medium 240 includes a hypervisor 250 required by the user equipment 200 in operation. In the embodiment, the management program 250 at least includes an operating system 251 and a Data Distribution Service (DDS) 252, and the invention is not limited thereto, and those skilled in the art can add other application programs according to the type and application field of the ue 200.

In one embodiment, the Operating System 251 is, for example, a new generation Robot Operating System (ROS 2), and the invention is not limited thereto.

The data distribution service 252 is Middleware (Middleware) located between the operating system 251 and the Application (Application), and uses Real-Time Publish subscription (RTPS) Protocol as its connection Protocol for running Multicast and Connectionless transmissions (such as User data packet Protocol (UDP)/Internet Protocol (IP)), and can run Transmission Control Protocol (Transmission Control Protocol)/TCP/IP in a specific context, so that the ue 200 can perform Real-Time networking and cooperative communication with the mobile communication network 100 through the network.

The data distribution service 252 includes QoS Profiles (QoS Profiles) whose QoS parameters are mapped to various bearers (Bearer) or Packet flows (Packet flows, such as IP Packet flows or QoS Packet flows) within the mobile communication network 100 of fig. 1 via the instant publish-subscribe protocol to apply the same QoS service. The QoS parameters include a persistence (persistence), a Reliability (Reliability), and a transmission Priority (Transport Priority) policy, and the QoS parameters can be improved by ensuring a transmission bandwidth, reducing a transmission delay, reducing a packet loss rate and a delay jitter of data, and the like in the mobile communication network 100.

In this embodiment, the main core of the data distribution service 252 is to use data-centric publish-subscribe as a standard, define the space of the communication network as Domain (Domain), and join a Container (Container) containing a Publisher (Publisher)/Subscriber (Subscriber) at any node in the Domain as a Participant (Participant).

The publisher publishes data of a single to multiple topics (Topic) to subscribers within the domain via writers (writers), the subscribers receive different types of data with readers (readers), and each Topic is associated with a Topic name, a data type and a QoS policy defined by a data distribution service, so that the writers, readers and participants can be set up separately by means of QoS parameters of the QoS profile to meet the requirements of different situations.

The data distribution Service 252 of each ue 200 may set different QoS profiles according to different application characteristics, and use the Type of Service (ToS) of the User Datagram Protocol (UDP)/Internet Protocol (IP) transmitted by the participants through the rtp Port as one of the mapping QoS parameters, so as to Filter data packets through a Packet Filter (Packet Filter), and map Packet streams of the same or different types of services of the same device (e.g., the ue 200) to various bearers or Packet streams in the mobile communication network 100 through a 4G/5G Modem (Modem) to apply the same QoS Service. In addition, each bearer or Packet Flow corresponds to a Transport Flow Template (TFT) in addition to a set of QoS parameters, and is filtered by a plurality of Packet filters (Filtering TFTs) included in the transport Flow Template, so that the QoS parameters can be mapped to various bearers or Packet flows in the mobile communication Network 100 through an Evolved Packet Core (EPC) or a Core Network (CN), so as to realize that the same QoS service can be applied in the mobile communication Network 100.

In one embodiment, the storage medium 240 may be implemented as a hard disk, and the invention is not limited thereto.

The processor 210 is electrically connected to the mobile communication interface 220, the at least one input/output interface 230 and the storage medium 240, and the processor 210 is configured to run the management program 250 stored in the storage medium 240, so as to enable the user equipment 200 to perform corresponding operations, which will be further described with reference to the drawings.

As shown in fig. 3, in an Evolved Packet System (EPS) architecture of a 4G LTE, the EPS architecture includes an Evolved Packet Core (EPC) of a Core Network CN and a Radio Access Network (RAN), where the Evolved Packet Core System defines a Packet Data Network (PDN Connection) for an IP Connection provided between a User equipment UE (for example, the User equipment 200) and an external Data Packet Network PDN, and performs operation Management of a User Data Packet by a Data Packet Gateway (PDN Gateway, P-GW for short) on a User Plane (User Plane), and a Serving Gateway (Serving Gateway, S-GW for short) cooperates with a Mobility Management Entity (Mobility Management Entity, MME). EPS Bearers (EPS Bearers) are the most basic unit under QoS control mechanism in LTE system, each bearer corresponds to a set of QoS parameters, which are used to ensure that the transmission of user data packets from the gateway P-GW to the user equipment UE (e.g. the user equipment 200) via the serving gateway S-GW, an access Node (Evolved Node-B, eNode-B or eNB) can meet the requirement of application service.

Furthermore, the EPS Bearer combines the QoS parameter and the IP address (UE IP address) of the UE, and filters (filters) Downlink (Downlink) Data packets (e.g. IP Flow 1-5 in fig. 3) via the Traffic Flow Template (TFT) and Service Data Flow (SDF) template (e.g. SDF 1-4 in fig. 3) by the gateway P-GW, and then maps to the Bearer or the packet Flow, that is, all IP packet flows (e.g. IP Flow 1-5 IP packet flows) on the same Bearer will obtain the same QoS Service, and different types of packet flows can map to different Bearers to provide different QoS services, wherein the QoS Bearer (beacons) includes a Dedicated Bearer (dedicate Bearer) and a Default Bearer (Default Bearer). The QoS parameters of the dedicated bearers are configured by the core network CN according to Traffic (Traffic) requirements, and are given to Guaranteed Bit Rate (GBR) bearers or Non-Guaranteed Bit Rate (Non-GBR) bearers, which are opposite to the GBR bearers, i.e. network resources cannot be permanently allocated to a specific bearer, and are applicable to services that can tolerate a certain data packet loss Rate. The QoS parameters of the pre-configured bearers come from the core network CN or from local configuration (e.g., the ue 200), and are given to the Non-guaranteed bit rate (Non-GBR) bearers.

Referring to fig. 3 and fig. 4, the QoS parameters in the 4G LTE system include, but are not limited to, QoS Class Identifier (QCI), Access Point Name (APN), Traffic Flow Template (TFT), Allocation and Retention Priority (ARP), IP address (IP address) or other QoS parameters, the QCI is applied to both GBR and Non-GBR bearers, each QCI value defines an index (as shown in fig. 3) including Priority (Priority), Packet Delay (Packet Delay), and acceptable Packet Loss (Packet Loss), each QCI value is associated with a Priority, Priority 1 is the highest Priority, the QCI value of the bearer determines its processing policy at the access node (eNB), QoS classes 1-4 are Guaranteed Bit Rate (GBR) services, and QoS classes 5-9 are Non-guaranteed bit rate (Non-GBR) services.

Furthermore, the mapping relationship between the UDP/IP data packets of the ue 200 and the different EPS bearers through the instant publish-subscribe protocol interface RTPS Port of the data distribution service 252 to map their QoS parameters to apply the same QoS to the EPS bearers is implemented through a Traffic Flow Template (TFT), which includes a set of all Packet Filters (Packet Filters) mapped to the corresponding EPS bearers, and the Packet Filters can be mapped to the corresponding bearers according to the Service Data Flow (SDF) template of the user. The ue 200 maps the uplink data packets to the associated bearers through the uplink traffic flow pattern for transmission, and the gateway P-GW maps the downlink data packets to the associated bearers through the downlink traffic flow pattern for transmission. The packet filter includes Source/Destination IP addresses (IP addresses), Source/Destination IP Port numbers (IP ports), and Protocol numbers (Protocol), the proprietary EPS bearer must have a corresponding traffic flow template, and the traffic flow template can filter the data packet based on the parameters including but not limited to Remote IP Address (Remote IP Address), Local/Remote Port Range (Local/Remote Port Range), Protocol number (Protocol ID), Type of Service (Type of Service, ToS), IPv4 Header (IPv4 Header), or other attributes, so as to map the QoS parameters of the data distribution Service to the EPS bearer in the 4G LTE system network to apply the same QoS Service.

The QoS parameters of the data distribution service of the present invention are set by the QoS configuration file, if the QoS parameters are applied to the situation of the intelligent factory, such as AOI application with fixed bandwidth requirement, intelligent glasses service with low delay for voice communication, data collection application such as internet of things control signal or tool machine field production, and the parameters that can be set include but are not limited to QoS policy (such as topoic, Transport Priority, delay Budget, persistence), etc.), and configuration corresponding to network resources (such as guaranteed bit rate data stream, preset QoS data stream (not guaranteed bit rate data stream), data distribution service participant, instant publishing subscription protocol interface, etc.) according to the QoS parameters of the data distribution service of the data packet, and adjustment according to the actual application, therefore, all the following description contents are explained together, and (5) performing combined aging.

As shown in fig. 5, the evolved Packet System EPS and 5G System (5G System,5GS) network is a Packet-Switched (PS) IP network, and transmits all data services in the form of IP packets, and provides an Always-On IP connection for the ue 200. When the ue 200 joins the EPS/5GS network, a PDN (dn) address may be allocated to the ue 200 to connect to the PDN, and the EPS refers to an IP access connection (IP access connection) of the ue 200 as an EPS bearer, which is a connection between the ue 200 and a P-GW gateway, and the P-GW is a predetermined gateway for IP access of the ue 200, so the EPS has defined a predetermined EPS bearer to provide a permanent online IP connection.

However, in order to reduce Signaling Overhead (Signaling Overhead) in the 4G LTE system and improve QoS control precision, the 5G system introduces two levels of Mapping, including Non-Access Stratum Mapping (NAS Mapping) and Access Stratum Mapping (AS Mapping), and cancels the bearer concept based on the stream QoS mechanism.

The association between the ue 200 and the Data packet network may be defined through a Protocol Data Unit (PDU) Session (PDU Session), in which a Data packet network PDN provides a PDU connection service, which includes a plurality of QoS packet flows and QoS rules, so that the ue 200 performs User Plane Function (UPF) traffic classification and marking, i.e., association between UL traffic and QoS packet flows, based on the QoS rules.

The data packets of each QoS Flow are identified by a QoS Flow identifier (QoS Flow ID, QFI), which generally corresponds to the value of a 5G QoS identifier (5 QI). Sending a preset QoS rule to the UE 200 through a packet data network PDN to establish a Protocol data unit Session PDU Session, and mapping data packets requiring the same QoS rule from an IP packet flow (IP flow) to three types of QoS packet flows including a Guaranteed Bit Rate (GBR) QoS packet flow, a Guaranteed Bit Rate QoS packet flow and a Non-Guaranteed Bit Rate (Non-GBR) QoS packet flow by a Filter Filter.

In this embodiment, the access Node B (Gnb) may configure the process of mapping QoS flows to Data Radio Bearers (DRBs) according to Radio resource conditions, and requires a QoS flow associated with a predetermined QoS rule to be Always-On (Always-On) throughout the lifetime of a PDU, and uses Non-GBR as QoS management.

The QoS Profile (QoS Profile) for each QoS packet flow in a 5G system may include, but is not limited to, a 5G QoS Identifier (5G QoS Identifier,5QI), an assign and maintain priority (ARP), a Reflective QoS Attribute (RQA), or other QoS parameters, wherein 5QI is a scalar for indexing a 5G QoS characteristic, including but not limited to resource type (e.g. GBR or non-GBR), pre-set priority, Packet Delay Budget (PDB), Packet Error Rate (Packet Error Rate), PER, pre-set Maximum Data Burst (Default Maximum Data Burst Volume) and pre-set Averaging Window (Default Averaging Window), etc., but the QoS configuration of the QoS Packet flow in the 4G LTE system or the 5G system corresponds to a set of QoS parameters, and the allocation of network resources by the QoS parameters is a well-known technique and is not so limited.

In addition, the UDP/IP data Packet of the ue 200 maps its QoS parameters to different bearers, IP Packet flows or QoS Packet flows through the instant publish-subscribe Protocol interface RTPS Port of the data distribution Service to apply the same QoS Service, such a mapping relationship is implemented through the Traffic Flow Template (TFT), the Packet Filter of the traffic flow template TFT can be mapped to the corresponding bearer, IP Packet flow or QoS Packet flow according to the Service Data Flow (SDF) template of the user, wherein the traffic flow template TFT can Filter the data Packet based on the information including but not limited to Source/Destination IP Address (Source/Destination IP Address), Source/Destination Port number (Source/Destination Port number), Protocol ID of Protocol over IP (Type of Service, ToS), IPv4 Header (IPv4 Header) or other attributes, the QoS parameters of the data distribution service are mapped to the load in the 5G LTE system network, and the same QoS service is applied to the IP packet flow or the QoS packet flow.

The above preferred embodiment and application of the present invention can be summarized as an operation method of an apparatus for implementing industrial automation by using a mobile communication network, mainly enabling the user equipment 200 to be in communication connection with the mobile communication network 100, as shown in fig. 6, the method includes the following steps.

Step S610: an IP connection is established with the data packet network. Further, the core network CN defines a data packet network connection for providing an IP connection between the ue 200 and the data packet network.

Step S620: and managing data packet bearing by using the QoS parameters.

In one embodiment, such as the 4G architecture, the ue 200 maps its QoS parameters to associated bearers by mapping uplink data packets to associated bearers through uplink traffic flow templates TFT for transmission.

In one embodiment, such as a 5G architecture, the data packet network PDN provides a plurality of QoS packet flows and QoS rules to the user equipment 200, and the user equipment 200 performs traffic classification and tagging of user plane functions based on the QoS rules.

Step S630: data packets are exchanged. Further, the ue 200 transmits or receives data packets based on the QoS rule.

Therefore, the device for realizing industrial automation by the mobile communication network of the invention can transmit data packets through the mobile communication network 100 and realize data transmission of the same QoS service by the QoS parameters, so as to ensure the transmission bandwidth, reduce the transmission time delay, reduce the packet loss rate and the time delay jitter of the data and the like to improve the data transmission quality.

While the foregoing detailed description is directed to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, it is not intended to limit the scope of the invention to the particular form disclosed, but on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents, and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims.

Claims

1. An operation method of a device for realizing industrial automation by a mobile communication network, wherein a data distribution service of the device is used as a connection protocol through a real-time publish-subscribe protocol interface, the operation method comprises the following steps:

establishing network address connection with a data packet network;

managing data packet bearer by using the service quality parameters; and

data packets are exchanged.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of performing QoS parameter management further comprises:

the apparatus maps the qos parameters to associated bearers by mapping uplink data packets to associated bearers via an uplink traffic flow template.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of performing QoS parameter management further comprises:

the apparatus performs traffic classification and tagging of user plane functions based on the received quality of service parameters.

4. An apparatus for implementing industrial automation by a mobile communication network, comprising:

the mobile communication interface is in communication connection with a mobile communication network;

a storage medium including a hypervisor; and

the processor is electrically connected with the mobile communication interface and the storage medium and is used for executing the management program, wherein the management program comprises a data distribution service system which carries out the management of data packet loading by using the service quality parameters through a real-time publish-subscribe protocol.

5. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the processor is configured to map uplink data packets onto associated bearers via an uplink traffic flow pattern to map the QoS parameters onto associated bearers.

6. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the processor is configured to perform traffic classification and tagging of user plane functions based on the received quality of service parameters.

7. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the QoS parameter comprises a class of service of a user data protocol/Internet protocol.

8. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the QoS parameters include QoS class identifier, AP name, traffic flow template, assignment and maintenance priority, and network address.

9. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the data packet bearer corresponds to a quality of service packet flow identifier.

10. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the QoS flow identifier corresponds to a value of a QoS identifier of a fifth generation mobile communication technology.