Scheduling of the FlexRay static segment for robust controller integration

In this paper, we consider the optimal and robust communication scheduling of the static part of the automotive communication protocol FlexRay from the system dynamic and control viewpoint. In general, given a plant and a controller, we design a communication policy between `nodes' (or ECUs) that minimizes the performance degradation introduced by the communication bus, using an H
_∞
framework. The resulting combinatorial optimization is performed by a fast versatile algorithm that can guarantee schedule calculation close to the optimum and that can easily handle the constraints imposed by FlexRay (such as bandwidth demands on selected ECUs). The theoretical results are validated using commercial FlexRay simulation products.