Evaluating Real-Time Ethernet performance indicators for SERCOS III networks

Industrial communication networks are a fundamental aspect of the connectivity demanded by Industry 4.0. In this scenario, protocols based on Real-Time Ethernet, which have been proven fundamental for automation tasks in the past, may be suitable also for new projects. Since Industry 4.0 requires additional features never exploited before in control networks that could jeopardize real-time, a trustful evaluation of key performance indicators is mandatory. As known by previous works, collecting and analyzing Real-Time Ethernet data is challenging, and not all the RTE protocols have been already studied. In this paper, the SERCOS III protocol is considered, because it is widely used in the industrial environment but it is not well investigated by the scientific community. Therefore, this work aims to carry out a (quantitative) comparative bibliographic research pointing out gaps, discussing SERCOS III protocol’s communication dynamics, and presenting a performance analysis method based on indicators for real applications. Finally, the Throughput RT and Non-RT, cycle time, and jitter are analyzed in a case study, where the proposed analysis structure is applied to a SERCOS III network.