Future Industrial Networks: Requirements, Challenges, Research and Standardization Needs
Marco Carugi, Zhe Lou · 2021
Digital transformation is affecting most industries. A large spectrum of applications is expected to be deployed in future industrial networks, with emerging industrial applications that include smart grid, flexible manufacturing, remote mining and others. The support of these applications by the underlying network infrastructures raises critical network challenges: demands for large-scale deterministic networking, increased network security, reliability and privacy support, as well as flexible addressing and routing capabilities, requiring fundamental advances in terms of networking technologies, with consequent needs of further network research and standardization efforts. This paper aims to provide an overview of critical network challenges to be addressed in order to satisfy requirements of future industrial network applications. Networking technology areas whose advances are fundamental in order to address the identified challenges are introduced. Requirements for network research and standardization are highlighted.