Low-Cost Software Evaluation of Communication Delays in Networked Industrial Systems

Equipment to be installed in real-time industrial control system networks must be carefully characterized before commissioning to ensure it meets performance requirements. However, performance analysis tools may be expensive and come with stringent hardware and software requirements that render them out of reach for many small and medium enterprises. In this paper, we propose a software tool that leverages inexpensive, commonly available personal computer hardware and Linux-based, user-level open source software to enhance portability, flexibility, and ease of use without sacrificing measurement accuracy. An extensive evaluation of the tool’s custom-designed traffic generator shows that it compares favorably with related work. At the same time, the measurement system is able to achieve remarkable accuracy in determining the mean delay and delay variance of the device under test, as also demonstrated by a practical device evaluation example.