Converging Safety and Security: IO-Link Wireless and OPC UA over 5G under prEN 50742

Abstract

The integration of wireless communication technologies in industrial automation offers greater flexibility, but also exposes safety systems to a broader threat vector. Emerging regulations, such as the draft standard prEN 50742, mandate the convergence of functional safety and cybersecurity by requiring cryptographic security mechanisms directly in safety-critical communication. This paper presents an empirical evaluation of this safety-security convergence across a complete control chain, spanning from an IO-Link Wireless Safety device to a PLC via an OPC UA backbone. We measure the latencies and jitter of different Safety-Related Security Levels under prEN 50742 over Ethernet, Wi-Fi 6, and private 5G. Our results reveal that while cryptographic execution time is negligible, the resulting frame payload expansion severely restricts wireless fieldbus capacity, reducing the maximum number of devices per IO-Link Wireless track from 8 to 2. Furthermore, we demonstrate that, despite higher average latency, a private 5G provides sufficiently deterministic latency characteristics to preserve functional safety watchdog margins, unlike unlicensed Wi-Fi 6.