A Proposal for a Generic Real-Time Ethernet System

Abstract

After the introduction of fieldbus technology, real-time Ethernet (RTE) systems now form the second generation of industrial communication systems (2G ICS). A lot of different approaches for RTEs appeared during the last years, most of them optimized for specific use cases or application domains. From a user's perspective, the transition from a proved fieldbus system to a RTE only makes sense, if multiple system properties are improved significantly in comparison to the state-of-the-art. In order to address such main requirements of machine builders, we introduced three building blocks as key components for a generic RTE system, these includes topology-based addressing, optimized datagram transfer, and synchronous scheduling.