An ATM-based multimedia integrated manufacturing system

Along with the emergence of high-speed communication technologies and protocols, tools for multimedia applications are growing in terms of their variety and their performances, making multimedia data flows candidates to the integration in almost every computer system. We particularly focus on the case of the factory plant where audio and video equipments could soon take part in the control/monitoring of manufacturing processes. Our paper presents a novel architecture for real time distributed systems using a 155.52 Mbit/s ATM network. The system is based on an intelligent network interface board, which integrates a processor and a field programmable gate array component to implement flexible high level real time data services in an off-host implementation approach. Moreover, the embedded ATM switch allows to build a large variety of topologies and provides high speed communication links, in particular for audio and video streams, inside the workstation. We also propose an MMS-like multimedia application service element for the integrated service computer manufacturing system and present some target applications.