Switched Ethernet with Multiple Client-Server Architecture in Real Time Networked Control System Applications

The importance of real-time communications at the device level in a factory automation setup is a widely researched area. It is an effort to experimentally verify if Ethernet can be used as a real-time communication standard in a factory automation setup, by observing the effects of packet delays, packet loss, and network congestion on the performance of a networked control system. The NCS (Network control system) experimental setup used here involves a boiler operation real-time feedback control of multiple plants connected to one or more controllers over the network. A Multi clientmulti server architecture on a local area network was developed using user datagram protocols the communication protocol. As the link utilization increased beyond the threshold, employing an additional server in the NCS reduced average packet delays and also overcame the negative effects of Ethernets flow control mechanism. This paper experimentally verifies that a multiple-clientserver architecture based on switched Ethernet can be used as a real-time communication standard for possible applications in factory automation, to reduce the packet delays and ease the flow mechanism.