Scalability Analysis of 5G-TSN Applications in Indoor Factory Settings

While technologies such as Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) improve deterministic behaviour, real-time functionality, and robustness of Ethernet, there is a drive for future industrial networks to be increasingly wireless. While wireless networks facilitate mobility, reduce cost, and simplify deployment, they do not always provide stringent latency constraints and highly dependable data transmission as required by many manufacturing systems. The advent of 5G, with its Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communication (URLLC) capabilities, offers potential for wireless industrial networks. 5G guarantees elevated data throughput, very low latency, and negligible jitter. As 5G networks typically include wired connections from the base station to the core network, integration of 5G with time-sensitive networking is essential to provide rigorous QoS standards. The paper assesses the scalability of 5G-TSN for various indoor factory applications and conditions using OMNET++ simulation. Our research shows that 5G-TSN has the potential to provide bounded delay for latency-sensitive applications in scalable indoor factory settings.