Advancements, trends and real-time considerations in industrial Ethernet protocols

We discuss recent advancements in industrial Ethernet protocols and more specifically it focuses on the real-time characteristics of the OLE for process control (OPC) systems compared to the pure real-time but less spread protocol RTPS (real time publish subscribe). Finally it proposes a merging of the two specifications in order to enhance the performance of OPC, aiming to support real-time communications.