Intermediate-Level Protocols to Provide Quality of Service in Master/Slave Communication Infrastructures
Filipe Pacheco · 2009
Industrial communication networks have suffered a dramatic change over the last decades. There has been a proliferation of ―traditional ‖ fieldbuses and other more application-specific networks, such as the ones relying on power-line communications. Industrial Ethernet solutions have gained a significant market share too. Due to the stringent quality-of-service (QoS) requirements of industrial monitoring and control applications, most of the protocols for this type of applications rely on a master/slave paradigm where one or more master stations control the access to the communication medium, granting medium access to slave stations. This Thesis was developed in synergy with the RFieldbus and REMPLI European Union projects. Although operating at opposite network scales, they share one main characteristic: a master/slave network was enhanced with communication features previously unavailable. In the context of the RFieldbus framework, a standard fieldbus network was extended to support multimedia services and wireless/mobility capabilities. These