Mathematical analysis of prioritized data transmission in the Foundation Fieldbus

The token-passing service in the data link layer of Foundation Fieldbus provides priority mechanism for urgent, normal and time-available data. Delay analysis of the priority mechanism is essential in order to guarantee real-time communication that is required by the application processes of the Foundation Fieldbus. This paper introduces a mathematical model for analyzing the delay performance of urgent, normal and time-available data in the Foundation Fieldbus data link layer token-passing service. The validity of the analytical model was verified using a simulation experiment.