Simulation, modelling and delay estimation in Profinet networks

This paper presents a way how a simulation model of an industrial Ethernet network is designed and how it is parametrised according to a real network. The parameter set up is done by capturing the Ethernet frames in the network and by performing their detailed analysis. The device types in the simulation have been designed as generic that can be parametrised externally and automatically based on the identification of a real network. Thus the parameters of the real devices such as switch delay are used to adapt the simulation and the simulation results are compared to the real traffic in a series of long-term observations. Such a setting can be used to perform diagnostics of industrial Ethernet networks to identify e.g. bursts of messages and thus discovering potential bottlenecks and problems aiming at interrupting or disturbing the connected application process, eventually.