Towards Flexible Integration of 5G and IIoT Technologies in Industry 4.0

Actas de las XV Jornadas de Ingeniería Telemática (JITEL 2021), A Coruña (España), 27-29 de octubre de 2021. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) Towards Flexible Integration of 5G and IIoT Technologies in Industry 4.0 Jorge Sasiain, Ane Sanz, Jasone Astorga, Eduardo Jacob Department of Communications Engineering, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) 48013 Bilbao, Spain. jor[email protected], [email protected], jasone.astorg[email protected], [email protected] Abstract In this article, the authors propose a flexible network architecture for Industry 4.0 leveraging two 5G key-enabling technologies—Network Functions Virtualization and Software-Defined Networking. The authors also present the deployment of a Wireless Sensor Network with strong access control mechanisms into such architecture, enabling secure and flexible Industrial Internet of Things applications. Keywords—industry 4.0, NFV, SDN, IIoT, 5G I. INTRODUCTION Traditional network architectures present several shortcomings in regards to flexibility, accessibility, and dynamicity that can be further aggravated in industrial scenarios where the coexistence with heterogeneous devices, machine tools, and industry-specific protocols is a reality. The Industry 4.0 paradigm also envisions the integration of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) applications, often comprised of interconnected devices with limited capabilities and resources, named Constrained Device Sensors (CDS), which form a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN). However, the integration of WSNs into industrial environments comes with security issues that must be overcome. The objectives of the present article are twofold. The first objective is to develop an NFVand SDN-enabled architecture capable of overcoming the aforementioned limitations. The second objective is to integrate a WSN strengthened by the use of a lightweight, dynamic, and fine-grained access control protocol. II. PROPOSED ARCHITECTURE This section presents the deployment of the NFVand SDN-enabled architecture for Industry 4.0, and the inclusion of a WSN for IIoT applications. It has been deployed across the Faculty of Engineering in Bilbao (EIB) and the Aeronautics Advanced Manufacturing Center (CFAA). These two locations are interconnected through a layer2 SDN network at a rate of 10 Gbps. Two OpenStack nodes manage the resources of their respective locations, and three ONOS controllers manage the data plane connectivity. Finally, an Open Source MANO (OSM) on top orchestrates the whole NFV and SDN infrastructure. This architecture is represented in Figure 1. Fig. 1. Proposed NFV and SDN architecture In addition, a WSN has been integrated into this architecture, enabling the deployment of several constrained sensors in order to monitor different environmental parameters. The Hidra protocol [1] is used, providing a strong and dynamic access control solution that can be implemented even in the most constrained devices. Each Network Service (NS) deployed through OSM maps logically to a given manufacturing process and provides it, on demand, with the necessary resources and Virtual Network Functions (VNF). Layer-2 VLAN segmentation is used in order to ensure isolation between different processes. Besides, the addition of the WSN introduces an additional dimension to the design of NSs, as services provided by the CDSs can be dynamically allocated to these NSs together with the services provided by the VNFs that they are composed of. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work was supported by 5G-City (TEC2016-76795C6-5-R) and TRUE5G (PID2019-108713RB-C54). REFERENCES [1] Uriarte, M., Astorga, J., Jacob, E., Huarte, M., Carnerero, M. (2017). Expressive policy-based access control for resourceconstrained devices. IEEE Access, 6, 15-46. 216