Case study on rate-based traffic control of industrial networks employing LonWorks

Abstract

Industrial communication networks have attracted much attention in the area of decentralized control systems for factory automation and computer integrated manufacturing. This paper investigates the rate-based traffic control of industrial communication networks employing LonWorks to improve the performance measures of throughput, fairness and error rates. For this purpose, we utilized feedback channel information through an additional network-monitoring node and made the overall system closed-loop. We demonstrate an improved performance of the controlled network system through experimentation upon an implemented lab-scale network system.