Performance analysis of a Master/Slave switched Ethernet for military embedded applications

Current military communication network is a generation old and is no longer effective in meeting the emerging requirements imposed by the next generation military embedded applications. A new communication network based upon Full Duplex Switched Ethernet is proposed in this paper to overcome these limitations. To allow existing military subsystems to be easily supported by a Switched Ethernet network, our proposal consists in keeping their current centralized communication scheme by using an optimized master/slave transmission control on Switched Ethernet thanks to the Flexible Time Triggered (FTT) paradigm. Our main objective is to assess the performance of such a proposal and estimate the quality of service we can expect in terms of latency. Using the Network Calculus formalism, schedulability analysis are determined. These analysis are illustrated in the case of a realistic military embedded application extracted from a real military aircraft network, to highlight the proposal's ability to support the required time constrained communications

Centralized vs distributed communication scheme on switched ethernet for embedded military applications

Current military communication network is a generation old and is no longer effective in meeting the emerging requirements imposed by the future embedded military applications. Therefore, a new interconnection system is needed to overcome these limitations. Two new communication networks based upon Full Duplex Switched Ethernet are presented herein in this aim. The first one uses a distributed communication scheme where equipments can emit their data simultaneously, which clearly improves system’s throughput and flexibility. However, migrating all existing applications into a compliant form could be an expensive step. To avoid this process, the second proposal consists in keeping the current centralized communication scheme. Our objective is to assess and compare the real time guarantees that each proposal can offer. The paper includes the functional description of each proposed communication network and a military avionic application to highlight proposals ability to support the required time constrained communications

FTT-Ethernet: A Flexible Real-Time Communication Protocol that Supports Dynamic QoS Management on Ethernet-based Systems

Ethernet was not originally developed to meet the requirements of real-time industrial automation systems and it was commonly considered unsuited for applications at the field level. Hence, several techniques were developed to make this protocol exhibit real-time behavior, some of them requiring specialized hardware, others providing soft-real-time guarantees only, or others achieving hard real-time guarantees with different levels of bandwidth efficiency. More recently, there has been an effort to support quality-of-service (QoS) negotiation and enforcement but there is not yet an Ethernet-based data link protocol capable of providing dynamic QoS management to further exploit the variable requirements of dynamic applications. This paper presents the FTT-Ethernet protocol, which efficiently supports hard-real-time operation in a flexible way, seamlessly over shared or switched Ethernet. The FTT-Ethernet protocol employs an efficient master/multislave transmission control technique and combines online scheduling with online admission control, to guarantee continued real-time operation under dynamic communication requirements, together with data structures and mechanisms that are tailored to support dynamic QoS management. The paper includes a sample application, aiming at the management of video streams, which highlights the protocol’s ability to support dynamic QoS management with real-time guarantees

Development of functional safety applications for Autec products. Study of protocols: CANopen, CANopen Safety, FSOE and ProfiSafe

This thesis has the principal goal of developing intrinsic safety applications in distributed real-time industrial systems, mainly based on fieldbuses and RTE networks. To achieve this important objective the first part of this elaborate provides an introduction of the principal protocols, such as CANopen Safety, Fail safe Over Ethercat (FSOE) and Profisafe, used for the safety relevant applications in the automation environment,analysing properties,story and the use of them by industry

Industrial networks and IIoT: Now and future trends

Connectivity is the one word summary for Industry 4.0 revolution. The importance of Internet of Things (IoT) and Industrial IoT (IIoT) have been increased dramatically with the rise of industrialization and industry 4.0. As new opportunities bring their own challenges, with the massive interconnected devices of the IIoT, cyber security of those networks and privacy of their users have become an important aspect. Specifically, intrusion detection for industrial networks (IIoT) has great importance. For instance, it is a key factor in improving the safe operation of the smart grid systems yet protecting the privacy of the consumers at the same time. In the same manner, data streaming is a valid option when the analysis is to be pushed from the cloud to the fog for industrial networks to provide agile response, since it brings the advantage of fast action on intrusion detection and also can buy time for intrusion mitigation. In order to dive deep in industrial networks, basic ground needs to be settled. Hence, this chapter serves in this manner, by presenting basic and emerging technologies along with ideas and discussions: First, an introduction of semiconductor evolution is provided along with the up-to-date hi-tech wired/wireless communication solutions for industrial networks. This is followed by a thorough representation of future trends in industrial environments. More importantly, enabling technologies for industrial networks is also presented. Finally, the chapter is concluded with a summary of the presentations along with future projections of IIoT networks

Intelligent Machining Systems

Machining is one of the most widespread manufacturing processes and plays a critical role in industries. As a matter of fact, machine tools are often called mother machines as they are used to produce other machines and production plants. The continuous development of innovative materials and the increasing competitiveness are two of the challenges that nowadays manufacturing industries have to cope with. The increasing attention to environmental issues and the rising costs of raw materials drive the development of machining systems able to continuously monitor the ongoing process, identify eventual arising problems and adopt appropriate countermeasures to resolve or prevent these issues, leading to an overall optimization of the process. This work presents the development of intelligent machining systems based on in-process monitoring which can be implemented on production machines in order to enhance their performances. Therefore, some cases of monitoring systems developed in different fields, and for different applications, are presented in order to demonstrate the functions which can be enabled by the adoption of these systems. Design and realization of an advanced experimental machining testbed is presented in order to give an example of a machine tool retrofit aimed to enable advanced monitoring and control solutions. Finally, the implementation of a data-driven simulation of the machining process is presented. The modelling and simulation phases are presented and discussed. So, the model is applied to data collected during an experimental campaign in order to tune it. The opportunities enabled by integrating monitoring systems with simulation are presented with preliminary studies on the development of two virtual sensors for the material conformance and cutting parameter estimation during machining processes

Experimental Study on Real-Time Wireless Networks for Motion Control of Manipulator and Mobile Platform in Industrial Robotics

The integration of ICT with manufacturing technologies is a key step towards intelligent manufacturing. The goal is to investigate some industrial application scenarios and evaluate the performance of selected wireless technologies. A recently standardized industrial wireless technology, WIA-FA, has shown good performance in practical deployments. Two experimental applications are considered: path planning testing with different wireless technologies and CANbus bridging with WIA-FA.openEmbargo temporaneo per motivi di segretezza e/o di proprietà dei risultati e informazioni di enti esterni o aziende private che hanno partecipato alla realizzazione del lavoro di ricerca relativo alla tes

Analysis of the impact of wireless mobile devices in critical industrial applications

The main objective of the thesis is to study the impact of mobile nodes in industrial applications with strict reliability and time constraints in both centralized and decentralized topologies. Considering the harsh wireless channel conditions of industrial environments, that goal implies a considerable challenge. In order not to compromise the performance of the system, a deterministic Real-Time (RT) communication protocol is needed, along with a mechanism to deal with changes in the topology due to the movements of the wireless devices. The existing wireless standard technologies do not satisfy the requirements demanded by the most critical industrial applications such as Distributed Control Systems (DCS) and, thus, wired communication cannot be directly replaced by wireless solutions. Nevertheless, the adoption of wireless communications can be seen as an extension to the existing wired networks to create hybrid networks with mobility requirements. The design of a proper communication solution depends mainly on the choice of the Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol, which is responsible for controlling access to the medium and thereby plays a vital role in decreasing latency and packet errors. Furthermore, the changes in the topology due to the movement of the wireless devices must be managed correctly in order not to affect the performance of the entire network. In this doctoral thesis, a hybrid centralized architecture designed for industrial applications with strict requirements in terms of robustness, determinism and RT is proposed and evaluated. For that, a wireless RT MAC scheme based on the IEEE 802.11 physical layer is proposed along with a Real-Time Ethernet (RTE) MAC scheme. This hybrid system ensures seamless communication between both media. With the aim of including mobile devices in the proposed architecture, a soft-handover algorithm is designed and evaluated. This algorithm guarantees an uninterrupted communication during the handover process without the need for a second radio interface and with a reduced growth in network overhead. Finally, the impact of mobile nodes in a decentralized wireless topology is analysed. For that, the Self-Organizing Time Division Multiple Access (STDMA) protocol is evaluated to analyse its viability as an alternative to carrying out a handover in industrial applications without centralized systems.El objetivo principal de la tesis es estudiar el impacto de los nodos móviles en las aplicaciones inalámbricas industriales con requisitos estrictos de tiempo y robustez tanto para topologías centralizadas como descentralizadas. Este objetivo supone un gran desafío dadas las adversas condiciones del canal inalámbrico en los entornos industriales. Para no comprometer el rendimiento del sistema, es necesario un protocolo de comunicación determinista y con garantías de tiempo real, junto con un mecanismo para hacer frente a los cambios en la topología debido al movimiento de los dispositivos inalámbricos. Las tecnologías estándar inalámbricas existentes no satisfacen los requisitos exigidos por las aplicaciones industriales más críticas, como los Sistemas de Control Distribuido (DCS - Distributed Control Systems) y, por lo tanto, las comunicaciones cableadas no pueden ser reemplazadas directamente por soluciones inalámbricas. Sin embargo, la adopción de las comunicaciones inalámbricas puede verse como una extensión de las redes cableadas existentes con el objetivo de crear redes híbridas con requisitos de movilidad. El diseño de una solución de comunicación adecuada depende principalmente de la elección del protocolo de control de acceso al medio (MAC - Medium Access Control), el cual, desempeña un papel vital en la disminución de la latencia y del número de paquetes erróneos. Además, los cambios en la topología debidos al movimiento de los dispositivos inalámbricos deben gestionarse correctamente para que el rendimiento de toda la red no se vea afectado. En esta tesis doctoral se propone y se evalúa una arquitectura híbrida centralizada diseñada para aplicaciones industriales con requisitos estrictos de robustez, determinismo y tiempo real. Para ello, se propone un esquema MAC inalámbrico con garantías de tiempo real basado en la capa física IEEE 802.11 junto con un esquema MAC basado en Ethernet en tiempo real (RTE - Real-Time Ethernet). Este esquema híbrido garantiza una comunicación continua entre ambos medios de comunicación. Con el objetivo de incluir dispositivos móviles en la arquitectura propuesta, se propone y evalúa un algoritmo de soft-handover. Este algoritmo garantiza una comunicación ininterrumpida durante el proceso de handover sin la necesidad de una segunda interfaz de radio y con un aumento reducido de la sobrecarga de la red. Finalmente, se analiza el impacto de los nodos móviles en una topología inalámbrica descentralizada. Para ello, se evalúa el protocolo del estado del arte Self-Organizing Time Division Multiple Access (STDMA) con el objetivo de analizar su viabilidad como alternativa para realizar un handover en las aplicaciones industriales sin sistemas centralizados.Tesi honen helburu nagusia, nodo mugikorrek fidagarritasun eta denboraren aldetik baldintza ugari eskatzen duten aplikazio industrial zentralizatu eta deszentralizatuetan duten eragina aztertzea da. Eremu industrialetako haririk gabeko kanaletan ematen diren komunikazioetarako baldintza bereziki aurkakoak direla medio, helburu honek erronka handia sortzen du. Sarearen errendimendua arriskuan ez jartzeko, determinista eta denbora errealeko komunikazio protokolo bat beharrezkoa da, haririk gabeko nodoen mugimenduaren ondorioz topologiaren aldaketei aurre egiteko mekanismo batekin batera. Haririk gabeko teknologia estandarrek ez dute aplikazio industrial kritikoenek dituzten baldintzak betetzen eta, beraz, kable bidezko komunikazioak ezin dira haririk gabeko sistemekin ordezkatu. Hala ere, haririk gabeko komunikazioen erabilpena jadanik existitzen diren kable bidezko komunikazioen hedadura bezala kontsidera daiteke, mobilitate baldintzak dituzten sare hibridoak sortuz. Komunikazio sistemaren diseinu egokia Medium Access Control (MAC) protokoloaren hautaketa zuzenean oinarritzen da gehien bat, sarbidea kontrolatzeaz arduratzen baita, honela ezinbesteko papera izanik latentzian eta pakete erroreen murrizketan. Horretaz aparte, bai sare zentralizatu eta deszentralizatuen kasuan, haririk gabeko nodoen mugimenduek sortutako tipologia aldaketak azkar eta zuzen kudeatu behar dira sare osoko errendimenduak kalterik ez jasateko. Doktore tesi honetan, fidagarritasun zorrotz, determinismo eta denbora-errealeko baldintzak dituzten industria aplikazioetarako arkitektura hibrido zentralizatu bat proposatu eta ebaluatu da. Horretarako, IEEE 802.11 maila fisikoan oinarritutako haririk gabeko MAC eskema bat proposatu da, Real-Time Ethernet-en (RTE) oinarritutako MAC eskema batekin batera. Eskema hibrido honek bi komunikabideen artean etengabeko komunikazioa bermatzen du. Proposatutako arkitekturan nodo mugikorrak kontuan hartu ahal izateko, soft-handover algoritmo bat proposatu eta ebaluatu da. Algoritmo honek etenik gabeko komunikazioa bermatzen du handover prozesuan zehar bigarren irrati interfaze baten beharrik gabe eta sareko gainkarga oso gutxi handituz. Azkenik, nodo mugikorrek duten eragina haririk gabeko topologia deszentralizatuetan aztertu da. Horretako, bibliografiako Self-Organizing Time Division Multiple Access (STDMA) protokoloa ebaluatu da industrial aplikazioetako sistema zentralizatuen handover mekanismoaren alternatiba gisa

Flexible management of bandwidth and redundancy in fieldbuses

Doutoramento em Engenharia ElectrotécnicaOs sistemas distribuídos embarcados (Distributed Embedded Systems – DES) têm sido usados ao longo dos últimos anos em muitos domínios de aplicação, da robótica, ao controlo de processos industriais passando pela aviónica e pelas aplicações veiculares, esperando-se que esta tendência continue nos próximos anos. A confiança no funcionamento é uma propriedade importante nestes domínios de aplicação, visto que os serviços têm de ser executados em tempo útil e de forma previsível, caso contrário, podem ocorrer danos económicos ou a vida de seres humanos poderá ser posta em causa. Na fase de projecto destes sistemas é impossível prever todos os cenários de falhas devido ao não determinismo do ambiente envolvente, sendo necessária a inclusão de mecanismos de tolerância a falhas. Adicionalmente, algumas destas aplicações requerem muita largura de banda, que também poderá ser usada para a evolução dos sistemas, adicionandolhes novas funcionalidades. A flexibilidade de um sistema é uma propriedade importante, pois permite a sua adaptação às condições e requisitos envolventes, contribuindo também para a simplicidade de manutenção e reparação. Adicionalmente, nos sistemas embarcados, a flexibilidade também é importante por potenciar uma melhor utilização dos, muitas vezes escassos, recursos existentes. Uma forma evidente de aumentar a largura de banda e a tolerância a falhas dos sistemas embarcados distribuídos é a replicação dos barramentos do sistema. Algumas soluções existentes, quer comerciais quer académicas, propõem a replicação dos barramentos para aumento da largura de banda ou para aumento da tolerância a falhas. No entanto e quase invariavelmente, o propósito é apenas um, sendo raras as soluções que disponibilizam uma maior largura de banda e um aumento da tolerância a falhas. Um destes raros exemplos é o FlexRay, com a limitação de apenas ser permitido o uso de dois barramentos. Esta tese apresentada e discute uma proposta para usar a replicação de barramentos de uma forma flexível com o objectivo duplo de aumentar a largura de banda e a tolerância a falhas. A flexibilidade dos protocolos propostos também permite a gestão dinâmica da topologia da rede, sendo o número de barramentos apenas limitado pelo hardware/software. As propostas desta tese foram validadas recorrendo ao barramento de campo CAN – Controller Area Network, escolhido devido à sua grande implantação no mercado. Mais especificamente, as soluções propostas foram implementadas e validadas usando um paradigma que combina flexibilidade com comunicações event-triggered e time-triggered: o FTT – Flexible Time- Triggered. No entanto, uma generalização para CAN nativo é também apresentada e discutida. A inclusão de mecanismos de replicação do barramento impõe a alteração dos antigos protocolos de replicação e substituição do nó mestre, bem como a definição de novos protocolos para esta finalidade. Este trabalho tira partido da arquitectura centralizada e da replicação do nó mestre para suportar de forma eficiente e flexível a replicação de barramentos. Em caso de ocorrência de uma falta num barramento (ou barramentos) que poderia provocar uma falha no sistema, os protocolos e componentes propostos nesta tese fazem com que o sistema reaja, mudando para um modo de funcionamento degradado. As mensagens que estavam a ser transmitidas nos barramentos onde ocorreu a falta são reencaminhadas para os outros barramentos. A replicação do nó mestre baseia-se numa estratégia líder-seguidores (leaderfollowers), onde o líder (leader) controla todo o sistema enquanto os seguidores (followers) servem como nós de reserva. Se um erro ocorrer no nó líder, um dos nós seguidores passará a controlar o sistema de uma forma transparente e mantendo as mesmas funcionalidades. As propostas desta tese foram também generalizadas para CAN nativo, tendo sido para tal propostos dois componentes adicionais. É, desta forma possível ter as mesmas capacidades de tolerância a falhas ao nível dos barramentos juntamente com a gestão dinâmica da topologia de rede. Todas as propostas desta tese foram implementadas e avaliadas. Uma implementação inicial, apenas com um barramento foi avaliada recorrendo a uma aplicação real, uma equipa de futebol robótico onde o protocolo FTT-CAN foi usado no controlo de movimento e da odometria. A avaliação do sistema com múltiplos barramentos foi feita numa plataforma de teste em laboratório. Para tal foi desenvolvido um sistema de injecção de faltas que permite impor faltas nos barramentos e nos nós mestre, e um sistema de medida de atrasos destinado a medir o tempo de resposta após a ocorrência de uma falta.Distributed embedded systems (DES) have been widely used in the last few decades in several application domains, from robotics, industrial process control, avionics and automotive. In fact, it is expectable that this trend will continue in the next years. In some of these application fields the dependability requirements are very important since the fail to provide services in a timely and predictable manner may cause important economic losses or even put humans in risk. In the design phase it is impossible to predict all the possible scenarios of faults, due to the non deterministic behaviour of the surrounding environment. In that way, the fault tolerance mechanisms must be included in the distributed embedded system to prevent failures occurrence. Also, many application domains require a high available bandwidth to perform the desired functions, or to turn possible the scaling with the addition of new features. The flexibility of a system also plays an important role, since it improves the capability to adapt to the surrounding world, and to the simplicity of the repair and maintenance. The flexibility improves the efficiency of all the system by providing a way to efficiently manage the available resources. This is very important in embedded systems due to the limited resources often available. A natural way to improve the bandwidth and the fault tolerance in distributed systems is to use replicated buses. Commercial and academic solutions propose the use of replicated fieldbuses for a single purpose only, either to improve the fault tolerance or to improve the available bandwidth, being the first the most common. One illustrative exception is FlexRay where the bus replica can be used to improve the bandwidth of the overall system, besides enabling redundant communications. However, only one bus replica can be used. In this thesis, a flexible bus replication scheme to improve both the dependability and the throughput of fieldbuses is presented and studied. It can be applied to any number of replicated buses, provided the required hardware support is available. The flexible use of the replicated buses can achieve an also flexible management of the network topology. This claim has been validated using the Controller Area Network (CAN) fieldbus, which has been chosen because it is widely spread in millions of systems. In fact, the proposed solution uses a paradigm that combines flexibility, time and event triggered communication, that is the Flexible Time- Triggered over CAN network (FTT-CAN). However, a generalization to native CAN is also presented and studied. The inclusion of bus replication in FTT-CAN imposes not only new mechanisms but also changes of the mechanisms associated with the master replication, which has been already studied in previous research work. In this work, these mechanisms were combined and take advantage of the centralized architecture and of the redundant masters to support an efficient and flexible bus replication. When considering the system operation, if a fault in the bus (or buses) occurs, and the consequent error leads to a system failure, the system reacts, switching to a degraded mode, where the message flows that were transmitted in the faulty bus (or buses) change to the non-faulty ones. The central node replication uses a leader-follower strategy, where the leader controls the system while the followers serve as backups. If an error occurs in the leader, a backup will take the system control maintaining the system with the same functionalities. The system has been generalized for native CAN, using two additional components that provide the same fault tolerance capabilities at the bus level, and also enable the dynamic management of the network topology. All the referred proposals were implemented and assessed in the scope of this work. The single bus version of FTT-CAN was assessed using a real application, a robotic soccer team, which has obtained excellent results in international competitions. There, the FTT-CAN based embedded system has been applied in the low level control, where, mainly it is responsible for the motion control and odometry. For the case of the multiple buses system, the assessment was performed in a laboratory test bed. For this, a fault injector was developed in order to impose faults in the buses and in the central nodes. To measure the time reaction of the system, a special hardware has been developed: a delay measurement system. It is able to measure delays between two important time marks for posterior offline analysis of the obtained values