Scheduling of Real-time Traffic in a Switched Ethernet Network
Anders Martinsson · Lund University Publications Student Papers (Lund University) · 2002
Traditional Ethernet networks are not suitable for real-time communication due to the nondeterministic handling of the network communication. The reason for the nondeterministic behavior is the CSMA/CD access control protocol that is used when the media is shared. The protocol can cause collision in the transmission. If this happens the transmission ceases and after a random amount of time a retransmission is tried. Over the years Ethernet transmission rate and communication reliability have increased, which make it a more interesting alternative for periodic real-time communication with a high update rate. This master thesis investigates if it is possible to avoid the nondeterministic behavior of Ethernet, by scheduling the periodic real-time traffic in a switched network.