19SafQB

168 IoT Applications — Value Creation for Industry
Fig. 3.6 From the automation pyramid to an automation network.
strong hierarchical control and communication structures will disappear (Figure
3.6). One of the main reasons for today’s hierarchical structure has been
the real time constraint for the past decades. Automated processes typically
require the reaction to events within a few milliseconds. Therefore specialized
automation networks have been set up not being compatible to the standard
TCP/IP protocol. Here, the central logic controller of an automated production
line acts as information gateway by aggregating the various signals to
performance indicators and offering them to the upper layers of the pyramid.
However today it is foreseeable that future revisions of the TCP/IP standard
will offer better real time support. Real time behavior will evolve to a quality
of service aspect enabling the realization of real time enabled subnets and
offering the addressability of every network partner [7].
3.3.3.3 The augmented operator
The utilization of the smart product, equipment and infrastructure will lead
to a huge amount of available data. The human will need to access situation
dependent filter mechanisms in order to decode the data noise. Context information
such as the task, the role or the intention of the human as well as