Designing a high-fidelity testbed for 5G-based industrial IoT

Abstract

With the rise of the Industrial IoT (Internet of Things) and Industry 4.0 paradigms, many control and sensor systems used for IACS (Industrial Automation and Control Systems) have become more complex, due to the increasing number of interconnected field devices, sensors and actuators often being geographically spread across large areas. Supporting these increasingly sophisticated networked scenarios calls for the involvement of telecommunications and utility providers to better support Machine-To-Machine (M2M) communications and infrastructure orchestration, for which 5G technology is considered a perfect match. Nowadays, such 5G networks empower solutions both for consumer and for industrial IoT scenarios, providing the capacity and the means to seamlessly connect a massive number of gadgets and sensors, with diverse data rate requirements, low latency, and low power consumption. Part of this flexibility is also due to the nature of the 5G Service Architecture (SA), which is based on a microservice concept, dividing its core through multiple functions, allowing it to horizontally scale in a flexible way. Furthermore, the 3GPP specifications encompass specific support for verticals by means of slicing and 5G LANs, paving the way for a paradigm shift in terms of the relationship between service, telecom, and operational infrastructure tenants. However, such benefits come at the cost of extra complexity and, consequently, an increased vulnerability surface. This calls for further research focused on improving 5G infrastructure management, service integration and security, which cannot be safely undertaken in production environments, thus motivating the development of suitable 5G testbeds. This research work, which was developed in the scope of the POWER and Smart5Grid P2020 projects, addresses the creation of a high-fidelity environment for 5G-related research, which encompasses a gNodeB and 5G core, together with emulated User Elements (terminal devices) and IoT nodes (in this specific case, Programmable Logic Controllers), constituting a 5G Industrial IoT scenario designed for development and validation of new solutions, security research, or even advanced training purposes. The entire infrastructure is supported via container orchestration technology, providing enhanced scalability and resilience characteristics.