Scheduling Real Time Communication in IEEE 802.1Qbv Time Sensitive Networks
The enhancements being developed by the Time Sensitive Networking Task Group as part of IEEE 802.1 emerge as the future of real time communication over Ethernet networks for automotive and industrial application domains. In particular IEEE 802.1Qbv is key to enabling timeliness guarantees via so called time aware shapers. In this paper, we address the computation of fully deterministic schedules for 802.1Qbv compliant multi hop switched networks. We identify and analyze key functional parameters affecting the deterministic behaviour of real time communication under 802.1Qbv and, based on a generalized configuration of these parameters, derive the required constraints for computing offline schedules guaranteeing low and bounded jitter and deterministic end to end latency for critical communication flows. Furthermore, we discuss several optimization directions and concrete configurations exposing trade offs against the required computation time. We also show the performance of our approach via synthetic network workloads on top of different network configurations.
RTNS '16