Multipath redundancy for industrial networks using IEEE 802.1aq Shortest Path Bridging

The paper deals with redundancy networks for industrial automation systems, which are becoming more and more similar to network from other communication domains such as computing, office and telecommunications. The paper is focused on the use of emerging IEEE 802.1aq Shortest Path Bridging (SPB). A concurrent multipath communication across the same SPB mesh network, eliminating the waste of resources of other redundancy protocols (e.g. the Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol) has been proposed and analyzed. Novel performance indicator are proposed to compare the SPB solution with already existing redundancy protocols. Finally, both generic examples and industrial specific examples are given, highlighting the advantages of SPB with respect to other industrial solutions, especially when upgrading traditional networks with ring topology.