Up-to-date trend of Real-Time Ethernet for industrial automation systems

In December of 2007, IEC (International Electrotechnical Committee) published the network standards for industrial automation systems. The standards are IEC 61784-2 and IEC 61158, that are related with “Real-Time Ethernet (RTE)”. RTE is more time-deterministic than the existing “Industrial Ethernet”, especially in IEC standards, it is defined as the specification with the mechanisms which synchronize timing between nodes and enable time-deterministic communication. In this paper, we report international standardization and also future trend regarding RTE in IEC.