Analysis of industrial ethernet's reliability and realtime performance

High reliability and real-time performance is a must in the industrial control networks. This article discussed both advantages and disadvantages of traditional fieldbus, then the open standard Ethernet technology was introduced. By discussing the disadvantage of applying commercial Ethernet to industrial control networks, this article analyzed two methods to improve the reliability and real-time performance of commercial Ethernet: hardware devices and communication protocols. This article could be used as a reference by Industrial Ethernet designers.