RTnet: a real-time protocol for broadcast-capable networks

Abstract

This paper presents an overview of a real-time network protocol, meant to be used on fully-connected local area networks with a broadcast capability. The intended use of this protocol is an in-home digital network, with support for on-the-fly addition and removal of network nodes, for resource-lavish and resource-lean devices, and for multimedia, command and control and regular data traffic. Both the design and the operation are presented, together with results from measurements on a prototype of the protocol on top of Ethernet