An analysis of real-time ethernets with regard to their automatic configuration

Abstract

Future market conditions require production systems which can be easily adapted to changing demands. However, the engineering process of industrial automation systems is characterized by high manual configuration efforts. Thus, the reconfiguration of such system leads to time-intensive and expensive downtimes. Therefore, this paper will present a concept on reducing the engineering effort - at least on the lower layers of the automation pyramid. Due to the real-time requirements on these layers, specific communication technologies must be used there - for example Real-Time Ethernets (RTEs) which are increasingly applied in industrial automation. However, their real-time capability is contrasted by an additional configuration effort in comparison to standard networks from the information technology domain. This paper will show an approach for the automatic configuration of RTEs and will check its applicability on the most widely-used RTE variants.