Real-time performance analysis of a QoS based industrial embedded network

AFDX serves as a backbone network for transmission of critical avionic flows. This network is certified thanks to the WCTT analysis using Network Calculus (NC) approach. However, the pessimism introduced by NC approach often leads to an over-sized and eventually an underutilized network. The manufacturers envision to better use the available network resources by increasing occupancy rate of the AFDX network by allowing additional traffic from other critical and non-critical functions. Such harmonization of AFDX network with mixed criticality flows necessitates the use of QoS mechanism to satisfy the delay constraints in different classes of flow. In this thesis we study such QoS-aware network, in particular, based on DRR and WRR scheduling. We propose an optimal bandwidth distribution method that ensures the service required by critical flows while providing maximum service to other non-critical flows. We also propose an optimized NC approach to compute tight delay bounds. Our approach has led to computation of up to 40% tighter bounds, in an industrial AFDX configuration, as compared to the classical approach

Scheduling Rate Constrained traffic in End Systems of Time-Aware Networks

Nowadays, most of cyber-physical systems in avionics, automotive or recent Industry 4.0 domains require networked communication for mixed-critical applications. Ethernet-based networks such as AFDX, TTEthernet or TSN are capable to support transmission of both safety-critical and non-critical flows. This paper focuses on the TTEthernet network compliant with the avionics ARINC 664-P7 standard supporting time-triggered communication (TT) together with rate-constrained (RC) and best-effort (BE) traffic. Due to a global synchronization, TTcommunication with low latency and minimal jitter is ensured with static schedules computed offline. For event-triggered RC flows, bounded jitter at the source and end-to-end latency are guaranteed with worst-case analysis methods. With the increasing demands of applications, flows with Quality of Service (QoS) requirements such as video or audio may be transmitted as BE flows. However, on current configurations, no guarantees are offered to BE flows. In this paper, we aim at increasing the maximum RC utilization and improving the QoS of BE flows to allow the transmission of video or audio traffic with low jitter and end-to-end delay requirements. For this, we focus on the scheduling mechanisms and propose a scheduling approach based on a static slotted table that is applied at end systems. This table integrates the TT schedules usually obtained with Satisfiability Modulo Theories (SMT) approaches and establishes offsets of RC flows that reduce the end-to-end delay of BE flows. Several strategies for offset computations are proposed based on the distribution of flows locally at end system or globally at switch. We show that local strategies perform better than the global ones to reduce end-to-end delay of BE flows

Vers la convergence de réseaux dans l'avionique

AFDX est le standard Ethernet commuté utilisé pour la transmission des flux avioniques. Pour des raisons de certification, le réseau AFDX déployé à présent dans les avions civils est très peu chargé. Cette thèse vise à étudier la possibilité envisagée par les avionneurs d’utiliser la bande passante AFDX restante pour transporter des flux non-avioniques additionnels (vidéo, audio, service). Ces flux ne doivent pas affecter les délais de transmission des flux avioniques. Pour multiplexer des flux avioniques et non-avioniques des politiques d’ordonnancement sont nécessaires au niveau des systèmes d’extrémité (end systems) et des commutateurs. Dans cette thèse, nous considérons l’exemple de la transmission sur AFDX de flux vidéo provenant des caméras de surveillance de l’avion. Le multiplexage des flux avioniques et vidéo est réalisé par l’introduction d’une table d’ordonnancement au niveau des end systems émetteurs et d’une politique de type SPQ dans les ports de sortie du commutateur. Cette solution préserve les contraintes temps-réel des flux avioniques, mais peut introduire des variations sur les délais de bout-en-bout des flux vidéo. Une allocation appropriée des flux avioniques dans la table d’ordonnancement peut réduire le retard d’émission des flux vidéo et ainsi, limiter les variations de délai. Nous proposons deux stratégies d’allocation des flux avioniques dans la table d’ordonnancement : une heuristique simple et une allocation optimale. L’allocation optimale est dérivée en résolvant un problème d’optimisation par contraintes qui minimise le retard d’émission des flux vidéo. Dans le cas des end systems moins chargés, l’allocation par heuristique est proche de l’optimale

Quantum assignment for QoS-aware AFDX network with Deficit Round Robin

International audienceAvionics Full Duplex switched Ethernet (AFDX) is the de facto standard for the transmission of critical avionics flows. It is a specific switched Ethernet solution based on First-in First-out (FIFO) scheduling. Timing constraints have to be guaranteed for such critical flows. The worst-case traversal time analysis introduces some pessimism, leading to a very lightly loaded network: typically less than 10 % of the bandwidth is used. One solution to improve the utilisation of the network is to introduce Quality of Service (QoS) mechanisms. First, it can decrease worst-case delays for the most constrained avionics flows. Second less/non critical additional flows can be transmitted on the network with bounded impact on avionics ones. Deficit Round Robin (DRR) is such a QoS mechanism and it is envisioned for future avionics networks. An optimised WCTT analysis has been proposed for DRR on AFDX, based on network calculus. With DRR, the flow set is divided into classes and each class is allocated a quantum. In each round, transmissions are managed, based on these quanta. Thus delays are significantly impacted by quanta. The contribution of this paper is to propose an efficient quantum assignment for a set of critical avionics flow classes and at most one additional class with less/non critical flows