Redundantly operable industrial communication system, method for operating the communication system, and radio transceiver station

A redundantly operable industrial communication system, comprising:

• at least a first communication device and a second communication device which are redundantly connected to an industrial communication network, the at first and second communication devices each including:
• at least a first communication network connection and a second communication network connection;
• a signal processing unit which is connected to the first and second communication network connections and which includes a multiplexer unit for forwarding data frames to be transmitted to the first and second communication network connections in a parallel manner and which includes a redundancy handling unit for processing data frames received from the first and second communication network connections, the redundancy handling unit comprising a filter unit which is configured to detect received redundant data frames;
• at least a first network infrastructure device and a second network infrastructure device which are assigned to the industrial communication network, the first and second network infrastructure devices each including:
• a plurality of communication network connections;
• and
• a coupling element which interconnects the communication network connections;
• wherein the first communication device is redundantly connected to the first network infrastructure device via its first and second communication network connections;
• wherein the second communication device is redundantly connected to the second network infrastructure device via its first and second communication network connections;
• wherein at least one of (i) the first and second communication devices and (ii) the first and second network infrastructure devices are configured such that data frames transmitted from the first communication network connection of the first and second communication devices to a respective network infrastructure device are assigned to a first virtual local area network and data frames transmitted from the second communication network connection of the first and second communication devices to the respective network infrastructure device are assigned to a second virtual local area network;
• wherein at least a first radio transceiver station and a second radio transceiver station are respectively connected to the first and second network infrastructure devices;
• wherein at least one of (i) the radio transceiver stations and (ii) the network infrastructure devices are configured such that data frames assigned to the first virtual local area network are transmitted over a first radio network via the respective first radio transceiver station and data frames assigned to the second virtual local area network are transmitted over a second radio network via the respective second radio transceiver station;
• wherein the first and second radio transceiver stations are configured, via coordinated transmission queue management, such that the first and second radio transceiver stations connected to the same network infrastructure device coordinate their orders for data frames to be transmitted such that the first and second radio transceiver stations never transmit data frames to the same destination media access control (MAC) address at the same time.