# The Dos and Don'ts of Industrial Network Simulation: A Field Report

## TL;DR

This paper reviews industrial network simulation tools by analyzing use cases and requirements, providing guidance on selecting appropriate simulation environments to improve efficiency in industrial network design.

## Contribution

It identifies industrial use cases, derives requirements, and maps existing simulation tools to these needs, offering practical insights for industrial network simulation.

## Key findings

- Industrial networks are complex and require tailored simulation tools.
- Existing simulation tools vary in capabilities and suitability.
- Mapping tools to use cases improves selection and application.

## Abstract

Advances in industrial control lead to increasing incorporation of intercommunication technologies and embedded devices into the production environment. In addition to that, the rising complexity of automation tasks creates demand for extensive solutions. Standardised protocols and commercial off the shelf devices aid in providing these solutions. Still, setting up industrial communication networks is a tedious and high effort task. This justifies the need for simulation environments in the industrial context, as they provide cost-, resource- and time-efficient evaluation of solution approaches. In this work, industrial use cases are identified and the according requirements are derived. Furthermore, available simulation and emulation tools are analysed. They are mapped onto the requirements of industrial applications, so that an expressive assignment of solutions to application domains is given.