A network protocol for distributed embedded systems

With the pervasion of high performance miniaturised computing devices, more intelligence can be incorporated in instruments, sensors and actuators within a control system. This leads to greater functionality and complexity of these devices. As a result a flexible communication mechanism is required that would provide optimal utilisation of computing resources on a network. Such flexibility and efficiency is generally not provided by the traditional master-slave hierarchical communication infrastructure used for integrating real-time systems. This paper describes a computer networking protocol for distributed embedded systems. This protocol provides a deterministic upper bound on message latencies. For the purpose of communication, no hierarchy is imposed on the nodes. Furthermore, nodes can be dynamically added to the network or removed from it. Finally a large system can be partitioned into an interconnection of multiple networks.