Determinism Enhancement of AFDX Networks via Frame Insertion and Sub-Virtual Link Aggregation

Abstract

Avionics Full Duplex Switched Ethernet (AFDX) is a standard proposed to implement deterministic networks by providing predictable performance guarantees. The determinism is enforced through the concept of Virtual Link, which defines a logical unidirectional connection between end systems. Although an upper bounded end-to-end delay can be obtained using analysis based on, e.g., network calculus, frame arrival uncertainty in destination End-System is a source of nondeterminism that introduces a problem with respect to real-time fault detection. In this paper, a mechanism based on frame insertion is proposed to enhance the determinism of frame arrival within AFDX networks. In order to mitigate network load increase due to frame insertion, a Sub-Virtual Link aggregation strategy, formulated as a multiobjective optimization problem, is introduced. In addition, a brute force algorithm, a greedy algorithm, and a greedy algorithm with preprocessing have been developed to find solutions to the optimization problem. Experiments are carried out and the obtained results confirm the validity and applicability of the developed approaches.