Fault tolerance of a class of double-loop networks

An analysis is made of the fault tolerance of a class of double-loop networks referred to as forward-loop backward-hop (FLBH) networks, in which each node is connected by unidirectional links to the node one hop in front of it and to the node S hops in back of it for some S. A measure of fault tolerance is described along with techniques based on Markov chains to calculate quickly and efficiently the upper and lower bounds on the fault tolerance of this network topology. The results of the calculations provide a more precise description of network fault tolerance than has been achieved with previously published techniques.<>