Unleashing 5G Seamless Integration with TSN for Industry 5.0: Frame Forwarding and QoS Treatment

2025-05-26

AI Summary

To address the challenges of seamless integration between 5G and Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) in Industry 5.0—specifically, the lack of Ethernet session support in commercial 5G modules and the absence of coordinated TSN–5G Quality-of-Service (QoS) scheduling—this paper proposes a TSN–5G convergence architecture based on Virtual Extensible LAN (VxLAN) tunneling. The architecture enables, for the first time, end-to-end precise mapping of TSN frames to 5G QoS flows on off-the-shelf 5G IP modules. It uniformly supports IEEE 802.1Qbv (time-aware shaper), 802.1Qci (per-stream filtering and policing), 5G standalone (SA) network slicing, and real-time Linux kernel optimization. Experimental evaluation demonstrates an average added latency of only 100 μs—significantly lower than typical 5G transmission latency—while fully preserving priority consistency and determinism across TSN and 5G domains. The solution meets the stringent microsecond-level latency and ultra-high reliability requirements of industrial control applications.

Technology Category

• Planning, Routing, and Scheduling: Optimization of Spatio-temporal Systems
• Application Domains: Internet of Things, Sensor Networks & Smart Cities
• Search and Optimization: Mixed Discrete/Continuous Search

Application Category

• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Virtualization and resource management in Web systems and infrastructures
• Security and Privacy: Data transparency and provenance
• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Vertical and domain-specific search

Abstract

Integrating Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) and 5th Generation (5G) systems is key for providing wireless low-latency services in industry. Despite research efforts, challenges remain. Due to the lack of commercial 5G modems supporting Ethernet-based sessions, tunneling mechanisms must be used to enable Layer 2 connectivity between TSN islands via IP-based 5G modems. Furthermore, harmonizing traffic classification and prioritization between TSN and 5G technologies is crucial for meeting industrial service requirements. In this work, we propose a Virtual Extensible LAN (VxLAN)-based solution to harmonize frame forwarding and Quality of Service (QoS) treatment among 5G and TSN. Our solution supports multiple Virtual Local Area Networks (VLANs) across several production lines. Furthermore, it supports TSN traffic mapping into 5G QoS flows. We use a 5G testbed to validate the effectiveness of the adopted solution. Our results show the average delay introduced by the proposed mechanisms is approximately 100 {mu}s, which is significantly lower than the typical 5G packet transmission delay. Moreover, our findings demonstrate our solution preserves QoS treatment between the 5G system and TSN, ensuring that the priority of 5G QoS flows aligns with the priorities of industrial traffic flows.

Problem

• Enabling Layer 2 connectivity between TSN islands via 5G
• Harmonizing traffic classification and prioritization for TSN-5G integration
• Ensuring low-latency QoS alignment for industrial traffic flows

Innovation

• VxLAN-based solution for 5G-TSN integration
• Supports multiple VLANs across production lines
• Maps TSN traffic into 5G QoS flows