5G Replicates TSN: Extending IEEE 802.1CB Capabilities to Integrated 5G/TSN Systems

The IEEE 802.1 time-sensitive networking (TSN) standards improve real-time capabilities of the standard Ethernet. TSN and local/private 5G systems are envisaged to co-exist in industrial environments. The IEEE 802.1CB standard provides fault tolerance to TSN systems via frame replication and elimination for reliability (FRER) capabilities. This paper presents X-FRER, a novel framework for extending FRER capabilities to the 3GPP-defined bridge model for 5G and TSN integration. The different embodiments of X-FRER realize FRER-like functionality through multi-path transmissions in a 5G system based on a single or multiple protocol data unit (PDU) sessions. X-FRER also provides enhanced replication and elimination functionality for integrated deployments. Performance evaluation shows that X-FRER empowers a vanilla 5G system with TSN-like capabilities for end-to-end reliability in integrated TSN and 5G deployments.