Experimental Analysis of Latencies in Ethernet Communications

A promising trend for industrial communications is the widespread adoption of universally available Ethernet-based technologies for interconnecting devices in automated factory environments. Furthermore, the availability of full-fledged open-source operating systems, such as Linux, enables the design of sophisticated field and embedded devices at relatively low costs. In this paper1, the performance of some COTS Ethernet boards together with their protocol stacks are evaluated experimentally, when they are run under an open-source operating system. In particular, the internal operations of the communication subsystem are identified and the transmission latencies measured and modeled accordingly.