Ethernet Connection Research Articles

A client–server framework for 3D remote visualization of radiotherapy treatment space

Radiotherapy is safely employed for treating wide variety of cancers. The radiotherapy workflow includes a precise positioning of the patient in the intended treatment position. While trained radiation therapists conduct patient positioning, consultation is occasionally required from other experts, including the radiation oncologist, dosimetrist, or medical physicist. In many circumstances, including rural clinics and developing countries, this expertise is not immediately available, so the patient positioning concerns of the treating therapists may not get addressed. In this paper, we present a framework to enable remotely located experts to virtually collaborate and be present inside the 3D treatment room when necessary. A multi-3D camera framework was used for acquiring the 3D treatment space. A client–server framework enabled the acquired 3D treatment room to be visualized in real-time. The computational tasks that would normally occur on the client side were offloaded to the server side to enable hardware flexibility on the client side. On the server side, a client specific real-time stereo rendering of the 3D treatment room was employed using a scalable multi graphics processing units (GPU) system. The rendered 3D images were then encoded using a GPU-based H.264 encoding for streaming. Results showed that for a stereo image size of 1280 × 960 pixels, experts with high-speed gigabit Ethernet connectivity were able to visualize the treatment space at approximately 81 frames per second. For experts remotely located and using a 100 Mbps network, the treatment space visualization occurred at 8–40 frames per second depending upon the network bandwidth. This work demonstrated the feasibility of remote real-time stereoscopic patient setup visualization, enabling expansion of high quality radiation therapy into challenging environments.

Ethernet Enabled Digital I/O Control in Embedded Systems

This paper presents very simple and economical way to provide Ethernet connectivity to micro controller based embedded systems. This system uses arm7 controller to store the main application source code, web pages and TCP/IP stack which is a vital element of the system software. an Ethernet controller chip,ENC28J60 is used to handle the Ethernet controller chip.ENC28J60 is used to handle the Ethernet communications and is interfaced with the host micro controller using SPI pins. There are several I/O pins available at the micro controller which are used to interface with sensors and relays for monitoring and controlling operations. Now a day, internet has spread worldwide and most of the internet connections use Ethernet as media for data transfer. in industries or in home appliances ,most of the time we need to monitor and control different parameters using micro controllers. Once we enable Ethernet interface to such systems, we can communicate with them remotely over the internet

Echo Particle Image Velocimetry

The transport of mass, momentum, and energy in fluid flows is ultimately determined by spatiotemporal distributions of the fluid velocity field.(1) Consequently, a prerequisite for understanding, predicting, and controlling fluid flows is the capability to measure the velocity field with adequate spatial and temporal resolution.(2) For velocity measurements in optically opaque fluids or through optically opaque geometries, echo particle image velocimetry (EPIV) is an attractive diagnostic technique to generate "instantaneous" two-dimensional fields of velocity.(3,4,5,6) In this paper, the operating protocol for an EPIV system built by integrating a commercial medical ultrasound machine(7) with a PC running commercial particle image velocimetry (PIV) software(8) is described, and validation measurements in Hagen-Poiseuille (i.e., laminar pipe) flow are reported. For the EPIV measurements, a phased array probe connected to the medical ultrasound machine is used to generate a two-dimensional ultrasound image by pulsing the piezoelectric probe elements at different times. Each probe element transmits an ultrasound pulse into the fluid, and tracer particles in the fluid (either naturally occurring or seeded) reflect ultrasound echoes back to the probe where they are recorded. The amplitude of the reflected ultrasound waves and their time delay relative to transmission are used to create what is known as B-mode (brightness mode) two-dimensional ultrasound images. Specifically, the time delay is used to determine the position of the scatterer in the fluid and the amplitude is used to assign intensity to the scatterer. The time required to obtain a single B-mode image, t, is determined by the time it take to pulse all the elements of the phased array probe. For acquiring multiple B-mode images, the frame rate of the system in frames per second (fps) = 1/δt. (See 9 for a review of ultrasound imaging.) For a typical EPIV experiment, the frame rate is between 20-60 fps, depending on flow conditions, and 100-1000 B-mode images of the spatial distribution of the tracer particles in the flow are acquired. Once acquired, the B-mode ultrasound images are transmitted via an ethernet connection to the PC running the PIV commercial software. Using the PIV software, tracer particle displacement fields, D(x,y)[pixels], (where x and y denote horizontal and vertical spatial position in the ultrasound image, respectively) are acquired by applying cross correlation algorithms to successive ultrasound B-mode images.(10) The velocity fields, u(x,y)[m/s], are determined from the displacements fields, knowing the time step between image pairs, ΔT[s], and the image magnification, M[meter/pixel], i.e., u(x,y) = MD(x,y)/ΔT. The time step between images ΔT = 1/fps + D(x,y)/B, where B[pixels/s] is the time it takes for the ultrasound probe to sweep across the image width. In the present study, M = 77[μm/pixel], fps = 49.5[1/s], and B = 25,047[pixels/s]. Once acquired, the velocity fields can be analyzed to compute flow quantities of interest.

Echo Particle Image Velocimetry

The transport of mass, momentum, and energy in fluid flows is ultimately determined by spatiotemporal distributions of the fluid velocity field.1 Consequently, a prerequisite for understanding, predicting, and controlling fluid flows is the capability to measure the velocity field with adequate spatial and temporal resolution.2 For velocity measurements in optically opaque fluids or through optically opaque geometries, echo particle image velocimetry (EPIV) is an attractive diagnostic technique to generate "instantaneous" two-dimensional fields of velocity.3,4,5,6 In this paper, the operating protocol for an EPIV system built by integrating a commercial medical ultrasound machine7 with a PC running commercial particle image velocimetry (PIV) software8 is described, and validation measurements in Hagen-Poiseuille (i.e., laminar pipe) flow are reported. For the EPIV measurements, a phased array probe connected to the medical ultrasound machine is used to generate a two-dimensional ultrasound image by pulsing the piezoelectric probe elements at different times. Each probe element transmits an ultrasound pulse into the fluid, and tracer particles in the fluid (either naturally occurring or seeded) reflect ultrasound echoes back to the probe where they are recorded. The amplitude of the reflected ultrasound waves and their time delay relative to transmission are used to create what is known as B-mode (brightness mode) two-dimensional ultrasound images. Specifically, the time delay is used to determine the position of the scatterer in the fluid and the amplitude is used to assign intensity to the scatterer. The time required to obtain a single B-mode image, t, is determined by the time it take to pulse all the elements of the phased array probe. For acquiring multiple B-mode images, the frame rate of the system in frames per second (fps) = 1/δt. (See 9 for a review of ultrasound imaging.) For a typical EPIV experiment, the frame rate is between 20-60 fps, depending on flow conditions, and 100-1000 B-mode images of the spatial distribution of the tracer particles in the flow are acquired. Once acquired, the B-mode ultrasound images are transmitted via an ethernet connection to the PC running the PIV commercial software. Using the PIV software, tracer particle displacement fields, D(x,y)[pixels], (where x and y denote horizontal and vertical spatial position in the ultrasound image, respectively) are acquired by applying cross correlation algorithms to successive ultrasound B-mode images.10 The velocity fields, u(x,y)[m/s], are determined from the displacements fields, knowing the time step between image pairs, ΔT[s], and the image magnification, M[meter/pixel], i.e., u(x,y) = MD(x,y)/ΔT. The time step between images ΔT = 1/fps + D(x,y)/B, where B[pixels/s] is the time it takes for the ultrasound probe to sweep across the image width. In the present study, M = 77[μm/pixel], fps = 49.5[1/s], and B = 25,047[pixels/s]. Once acquired, the velocity fields can be analyzed to compute flow quantities of interest.

On IEEE 802.3az Energy Efficiency in Web Hosting Centers

This letter presents results from our measurement campaign conducted in a web hosting center in Madrid. We collected traffic data to evaluate the potential power saving that could be achieved by replacing the company's gigabit wired links with the newly released Energy Efficient Ethernet connections (IEEE 802.3az standard). Using traffic traces collected with high precision timestamps, we feed a simulator and use an analytical model to compute the potential power saving achievable for the monitored link. We reveal that at least 80% of the power, consumed by links and network interfaces, can be saved more than 40% of the time. Furthermore, we show the importance of precise arrival time measurements by post-processing the collected traces to introduce random noise to the original timestamps.

Datacenter at the Airport: Reasoning about Time-Dependent Parking Lot Occupancy

Recently, Olariu et al. [3], [7], [18], [19], [20] proposed to refer to a dynamic group of vehicles whose excess computing, sensing, communication, and storage resources can be coordinated and dynamically allocated to authorized users, as a vehicular cloud. One of the characteristics that distinguishes vehicular clouds from conventional clouds is the dynamically changing amount of available resources that, in some cases, may fluctuate rather abruptly. In this work, we envision a vehicular cloud involving cars in the long-term parking lot of a typical international airport. The patrons of such a parking lot are typically on travel for several days, providing a pool of cars that can serve as the basis for a datacenter at the airport. We anticipate a park and plug scenario where the cars that participate in the vehicular cloud are plugged into a standard power outlet and are provided Ethernet connection to a central server at the airport. In order to be able to schedule resources and to assign computational tasks to the various cars in the vehicular cloud, a fundamental prerequisite is to have an accurate picture of the number of vehicles that are expected to be present in the parking lot as a function of time. What makes the problem difficult is the time-varying nature of the arrival and departure rates. In this work, we concern ourselves with predicting the parking occupancy given time-varying arrival and departure rates. Our main contribution is to provide closed forms for the probability distribution of the parking lot occupancy as a function of time, for the expected number of cars in the parking lot and its variance, and for the limiting behavior of these parameters as time increases. In addition to analytical results, we have obtained a series of empirical results that confirm the accuracy of our analytical predictions.

Implementation of IEEE-1588 timing and synchronization for ATCA control and data acquisition systems

Control and data acquisition (C&DA) systems for Fusion experiments are required to provide accurate timing and synchronization (T&S) signals to all of its components. IPFN adopted PICMG's Advanced Telecommunications Computing Architecture (ATCA) industry standard to develop C&DA instrumentation. ATCA was chosen not only for its high throughput characteristics but also for its high availability (HA) features which become of greater importance in steady-state operation scenarios. However, the specified ATCA clock and synchronization interface may be too limited for the timing and synchronization needs in advanced Physics experiments. Upcoming specification extensions, developed by the “xTCA for Physics” workgroups, will contemplate, among others, a complementary timing specification, developed by the PICMG xTCA for Physics IO, Timing and Synchronization Technical Committee. The IEEE-1588 Precision Time Protocol (PTP) over Ethernet is one of the protocols, proposed by the Committee, aiming for precise synchronization of clocks in measurement and control systems, based on low jitter and slave-to-slave skew criteria.The paper presents an implementation of IEEE-1588 over Ethernet, in an ATCA hardware platform. The ATCA hardware consists of an Advanced Mezzanine Card (AMC) quad-carrier front board with PCI Express switching. IEEE-1588 is to be implemented on a Virtex-6 FPGA. Ethernet connectivity with the remote master clock is located on the rear transition module (RTM). The generated synchronized clock and absolute time in IRIG-B format are distributed to all systems endpoints by a cross-point switch which is also implemented on the FPGA.

A real-time data transmission method based on Linux for physical experimental readout systems

In a typical physical experimental instrument, such as a fusion or particle physical application, the readout system generally implements an interface between the data acquisition (DAQ) system and the front-end electronics (FEE). The key task of a readout system is to read, pack, and forward the data from the FEE to the back-end data concentration center in real time. To guarantee real-time performance, the VxWorks operating system (OS) is widely used in readout systems. However, VxWorks is not an open-source OS, which gives it has many disadvantages. With the development of multi-core processor and new scheduling algorithm, Linux OS exhibits performance in real-time applications similar to that of VxWorks. It has been successfully used even for some hard real-time systems. Discussions and evaluations of real-time Linux solutions for a possible replacement of VxWorks arise naturally. In this paper, a real-time transmission method based on Linux is introduced. To reduce the number of transfer cycles for large amounts of data, a large block of contiguous memory buffer for DMA transfer is allocated by modifying the Linux Kernel (version 2.6) source code slightly. To increase the throughput for network transmission, the user software is designed into formation of parallelism. To achieve high performance in real-time data transfer from hardware to software, mapping techniques must be used to avoid unnecessary data copying. A simplified readout system is implemented with 4 readout modules in a PXI crate. This system can support up to 48MB/s data throughput from the front-end hardware to the back-end concentration center through a Gigabit Ethernet connection. There are no restrictions on the use of this method, hardware or software, which means that it can be easily migrated to other interrupt related applications.

Performance of Thin-Film as Wavelength Filter in Wdm-Pof Network

Problem statement: Huge capacity for data transmission and bandwidth are becoming a need nowadays. High cost of implementation using optical fibers prevents utilization of the technology as wide as possible. Approach: Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) was a technique that offers the solution for providing better bandwidth. WDM technique allows several signals that have different wavelengths to be transmitted in a single optical fiber to the receiver without any external interference or internal interruption between the signals transmitted simultaneously. WDM technique requires splitting of signals at reaching the receivers and one of the solutions presented in this study will provide a method using inexpensive filtering device that functions efficiently as a demultiplexer that can be develop without any complication. There were a lot of systems that provided demultiplexing techniques in the industry; all the systems are expensive to be implemented. Here the study provides an effective and easy to construct demultiplexer by using colored thin films. The WDM-POF system studies the performances of thin-films to be used as demultiplexer and red thin-films will be focused. Results: In theory, the thin-films will filter out any undesired signals that pass through the fiber and the desired signal will be carried to the end-receiver. The effectiveness of each red thin- films were characterized by analyzing the insertion losses (dBm) and power output (µW). Characterization analysis in this study includes the characterization test of using the same sources towards different types of red thin-films to obtain the best film that could filter out any undesired wavelength and let only the desired wavelength to be transmitted at high percentage. An initial stage of selecting different colored films by analyzing the energy spectrum distribution curves for the potential red thin- films will then be characterized where red, blue and green LED sources were injected through the films. Small insertion loss of the signal transmitted for the same wavelength of the source and high power output will be preferred. High insertion loss and small power output are preferred for filtering out the undesired wavelengths. Comparison and characterization analysis through the samples and graph simulations provides the efficiency of the thin films that were used in the optical WDM-POF short-haul communication system. Conclusion: Optimum performance can be observed through the end-receivers that have been connected to the device developed such as the Ethernet connectivity and the result of video image received the signals as desired.

Design of Ethernet Interface Based on FPGA and W5300

In order to give consideration to the speed and distance of data transmission, we design and put forward a design of ethernet interface based on FPGA and W5300, in which we achieve the high-speed ethernet connectivity between equipment and terminal device. UDP unicast mode is adopted in ethernet interface, and high-quality transmission medium is used to ensure the reliability of transmission link. It is proved that, the interface, with characteristics of relatively high-speed and long-distance, is relatively reliable and almost no package lost.

IMPLEMENTATION OF RFID AND BLUETOOTH TECHNOLOGY FOR DATA TAGGING AND TRANSMISSION TO POINT OF SALE

The design of wireless technology which involves radio frequency identiflcation (RFID) and Bluetooth technology for tagging and transmission of data that will be applied to point of sale (POS) is presented. A complete POS circuitry system has been designed to allow certain item to be a tag easily identifled and localized. This is implemented by using RFID technology which will communicate with personal computer (PC) either through Ethernet or Wifl connection. An Impinj RFID reader and Bluetooth mobile phone are selected in the proposed POS system. Matlab simulation has been performed for RFID transceiver part and Bluetooth data transmission. A prototype software is developed to interface the Impinj RFID reader through the Ethernet connection. Additionally, a data encryption from Bluetooth is paired with PC to achieve a secure and simple pairing feature when customer transaction is performed. It involves hardware and software implementation. Moreover, in simulation result, a double side band modulation is used to design the RFID reader for better item tagging. The results show the feasibility of using this design for POS and achieving very good read ranges. Finally, Bluetooth system enables fast transaction and makes purchase securely by using the proposed asymmetric algorithm.

Physical and Virtual Intelligent Sensors for Integrated Health Management Systems

Abstract This paper describes the development of intelligent sensors as part of an integrated systems approach. The integrated systems approach treats the sensor as a complete system with its own sensing hardware (the traditional sensor), A/D converter, processing and storage capabilities, software drivers, self-assessment algorithms and communication protocols. The immediate application is the monitoring of rocket test stands, but the technology should be generally applicable to the Integrated Systems Health Monitoring (ISHM) vision. This paper outlines progress made in the development of intelligent sensors by describing the work done to date on Physical Intelligent Sensors (PIS) and Virtual Intelligent Sensors (VIS). The PIS as discussed here consists of a thermocouple used to read temperature in an analog form which is then converted into digital values. A microprocessor collects the sensor readings and runs numerous embedded event detection routines on the digital data. If any event, i.e. spike, drift, noise, is detected, it is reported, stored and sent to a remote system through an Ethernet connection. Hence the output of the PIS is data coupled with a confidence factor in the reliability of the data. The VIS discussed here is a virtual implantation of the PIS in C++. The VIS is designed to mirror the operations of the PIS; however, the VIS works on a computer at which digital data is provided as the input and is thus portable to any sensor system. This work lays the foundation for the next generation of smart devices that have embedded intelligence for distributed decision making capabilities.

Focus on vacuum and cryogenics

Focus on vacuum and cryogenics

Fine-Grained Parallel and Distributed Spatial Stochastic Simulation of Biological Reactions

Fine-Grained Parallel and Distributed Spatial Stochastic Simulation of Biological Reactions

Design and Optimization of Medium Access Control Protocol of IEEE 802.3 Transmitter with VHDL

ABSTRACT The purpose of this paper is to design and develop a MAC Transmitter on Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) that converts 32 bit data in to 4 bit DATA for transmitter. In this paper we design the Ethernet (802.3) connection oriented LAN Medium Access Control Transmitter (MAC). It starts by describing the behavior of MAC circuit using VHISC Hardware Description Language (VHDL). A synthesized VHDL model of the chip is developed and implemented on target technology. This paper will concentrate on the testability features that increase product reliability. It focuses on the design of a MAC Transmitter chip with embedded Built-In-Self- Test (BIST) architecture using FPGA technology. General Terms Medium Access Control, VHISC Hardware Description Language Keywords- Local Area Network (LAN), Medium Access Control(MAC), Linear feed Back Register, Logical Link Control(LLC), VHISC Hardware Description Language (VHDL). STRT1. INTRODUCTION The Media Access Control (MAC) data communication protocol sub-layer, also known as the Medium Access Control, is a part of the data link layer specified in the seven-layer of OSI model (layer 2). It provides addressing and channel access control mechanisms that make it possible for several terminals or network nodes to communicate within a multipoint network, typically with a local area network (LAN) or metropolitan area network (MAN). A MAC protocol is not required in full-duplex point-to-point communication. In single channel point-to-point communications full-duplex can be emulated. This emulation can be considered a MAC layer. The MAC sub-layer acts as an interface between the Logical Link Control RWsub layer and the network's physical layer. The MAC layer provides an addressing mechanism called physical address or MAC address. This is a unique serial number assigned to each network adapter, making it possible to deliver data packets to a destination within a sub network, i.e. a physical network without routers, for example an Ethernet network. FPGA area and speed optimization to implement computer network protocol is subject of research mainly due to its importance to network performance. The objective of resource utilization of field programming gate array(FPGA) is to allocate contending to embed maximum intricate functions. This approach makes design cost effective and maximizing IEEE 802.3 MAC performance. Binary exponential back off algorithm. Very high speed integrated circuit hardware description language (VHSIC-HDL) VHDL coding to implemented synchronous counter and FSM coding style influence performance of MAC transmitter[1][3].However effective VHDL coding style optimizes FPGA resource allocation for area and speed performance of IEEE 802.3 MAC transmitter can be optimized using linear feedback shift register, one hot finite machine (FSM) state encoding style.

Reliable Multi-Bit-Rate VPN Provisioning for Multipoint Carrier-Grade Ethernet Services Over Mixed-Line-Rate WDM Optical Networks

Ethernet's success in local-area networks (LANs) is fueling the efforts to extend its reach to cover metro and long-haul networks. A key enabler for using Ethernet in the carrier's network is its ability to efficiently sup port multipoint-to-multipoint (MP2MP) services. MP2MP service is the core underlying structure to enable standard Ethernet services such as Ethernet virtual private networks (E-VPNs). Since most of the research, standardization, and development have focused on designing protection architectures for point-to-point (P2P) Ethernet connections, protecting E-VPN services is an important research problem. Among the various transport methods for realizing carrier Ethernet, the wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) optical network is a strong candidate. Wavelength channel rates are increasing from 10 to 40 Gbits/s and even 100 Gbits/s, and they can also coexist in the same fiber. We study the problem of cost-efficient provisioning of multi-bit-rate (1/10/40/100 Gbits/s) self-protected E-VPN demands over a carrier-grade Ethernet network employing WDM optical network (Ethernet over WDM) with mixed line rates (MLRs). We study two algorithms for self-protected E-VPN provisioning. The first algorithm reforms the original E-VPN topology and increases the provisioning rates (10/40/100 Gbits/s) of the E-VPN edge demands to create excess capacity that can be used for protection (E-VPN reformation). The second algorithm routes the E-VPN edge demands using the lowest available rate (10/40/100 Gbits/s) and establishes backup capacity for protecting the E-VPN (no E-VPN reformation). Our algorithms are tested on a 17-node German national network topology. The results show that using E-VPN reformation achieves significant cost reduction and significant improvement in the network's performance by reducing the traffic-blocking ratio.

Elemental 2D imaging of paintings with a mobile EDXRF system

Imaging techniques are now used commonly and intensively in cultural heritage object analysis. Nowadays, many different techniques in nature as well as many applications exist, where they can be applied. X-ray radiography and infrared reflectography as well as UV photography are some of the most applied techniques. The study of works of art usually requires these techniques to be non-invasive. Furthermore, they are frequently required to perform in situ analysis. A few years ago, our laboratory developed a mobile energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence and UV-vis-NIR coupled spectrometer, especially designed for fieldwork studies, where all three techniques can be applied strictly at the same site of analysis. Recent developments on a new positioning system have now allowed us to perform 2D elemental mappings with our equipment, which is especially well adapted to painting analysis. The system control is carried out entirely through a laptop computer running a dedicated homemade software. The positioning is achieved by means of a CCD camera embedded in the system and controlled via a Wi-Fi connection through the computer. The data acquisition system, which is made through a homemade multichannel pulse height analyzer, being also managed via the software mentioned above, goes through an Ethernet connection. We will present here the new developments of the system and an example of in situ 2D elemental mapping applied on an anonymous oil painting on wood panel. The discovery of a hidden painting under this oil painting makes it a good choice for a first example of 2D large scan with a mobile instrument.

A Scheduling Strategy Suitable for Industrial Ethernet and Mine WSN Scheduling System

Aiming at the actual requirement of the System of industrial Ethernet Connectivity of wireless sensor networks in underground coal mine, a dynamic priority scheduling algorithm which is applied in the interconnected gateway is presented. The algorithm can avoid the occurrence of the congestion in the interconnected system. Simulation results show that packet loss rate is controlled within 7 to 15%, service response time is controlled within 2.8~7s and average queue length is stable when the interconnected system is three times than the maximum load. However, when the load of the interconnected system has returned to normal, the gateway enters the steady state that packet loss rate is zero only after 6s.

A Gigabit per second read-out system for Medipix Quads

A system to read-out images from four photon-counting Medipix chips at one Gigabit per second has been constructed in a bilateral collaboration between Nikhef and PANalytical. The system consists of two printed circuit boards. One board supports the four Medipix readout ASICs, flip-chipped to a single pixellized semiconducting sensor on top. This board is mounted perpendicular on the Relaxd read-out board. This Relaxd board supplies the necessary voltages to the Medipix readout ASICs, controls all signals to and from these chips via a low-power Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA, Lattice SC series) and communicates with a PC through a standard one Gigabit per second Ethernet connection (GbE). The T-shaped mechanical topology allows multiple modules to be mounted adjacent to each other in all directions (2D tiling) and to minimise the insensitive area between separate Relaxd modules. An overview of the system layout and the functionality is presented as well as the first test results.

Real-time signal communication between diagnostic and control in ASDEX Upgrade

The ASDEX Upgrade tokamak experiment is equipped with a versatile discharge monitoring and control system. It allows to develop and use advanced control algorithms to investigate plasma physics under well-defined conditions with the objective of optimising plasma performance. The achievable quality depends on the accuracy with which the plasma state can be reconstructed from measurements under real-time conditions. Today's advanced algorithms need physics quantities – scalar entities as well as profiles. These are obtained processing huge numbers of raw measurements with complex diagnostic algorithms. Adequate network communication for the resulting signals is crucial to satisfy real-time requirements, especially when several diagnostic systems cooperate in a feedback control loop. Support for the technology of choice, however, is not easily available for all of the diverse, highly specialised diagnostic systems. We give an overview about the methods that have been explored at ASDEX Upgrade for real-time signal transfer. In particular, we investigated reflective shared memory and Ethernet technologies. Our solution strives to combine their strengths. For fast communication on dedicated computing nodes, reflective shared memory is used. For the majority of diagnostic systems producing large data blocks at moderate rates, Ethernet connections with UDP protocol are employed. Following ASDEX Upgrade's framework concept, a software layer hides the networks used from both diagnostic and control applications.