QoS of IP Services in a Fieldbus Network: on the Limitations and Possible Improvements
Luís Lino Ferreira, Eduardo Tovar · 2002
This paper focuses on the problem of providing efficient scheduling mechanisms for IP packets encapsulated in the frames of a real-time fieldbus network- the PROFIBUS. The approach described consists on a dual-stack approach encompassing both the control-related traffic ("native " fieldbus traffic) and the IP-related traffic. The overall goal is to maintain the hard real-time guarantees of the control-related traffic, while at the same time providing the desired quality of service (QoS) to the coexistent IP applications. We start to describe the work which have been up to now carried out in the framework of the European project RFieldbus (High Performance Wireless Fieldbus in Industrial Multimedia-Related Environments- IST-1999-11316). Then we identify its limitations and point out solutions that are now being addressed out of the framework of the above-mentioned European project. 1.