Real-time Embedded Systems- Lecture 06

Real-time Embedded Systems

Lecture 6
Embedded Communication
Part I
Prof. Dr. Amitava Gupta

Department of Power Engineering

Jadavpur University, India

Real-time Embedded Systems- Lecture 06

Formalizing the requirements of RT communications

Determinism

Composability

Flexibility

Fault Tolerance
 Real-time Embedded Systems- Lecture 06

Flow Control: Explicit and Implicit

Explicit Flow Control:

The sender and the receiver , each has a client associated with it.
The sender sends a message and awaits an acknowledgement from the receiver after starting
a timeout counter and a retry counter.
If the acknowledgement is received within the timeout value, it informs its client and the send
task is assumed to have been complete. Else, it checks if the maximum number of retry attempts
have been exceeded or not and attempts another send. A failure is intimated to the client once
the max. number of retries is exceeded.

The receiver , on receiving a message, first checks if the message has already been received or
not. If it has been received, it sends an acknowledgement to the sender only. Otherwise, it sends
the message to its client and sends an acknowledgement to the sender.

Thus, the error detection is at the sender end only.

 Real-time Embedded Systems- Lecture 06

Flow Control: Explicit and Implicit contd..

Implicit Flow Control:

The receiver is programmed to receive messages from the sender at some pre-designated
instants only.
No explicit acknowledgment is sent.
Reliability is ensured by sending the message through multiple links.

Thus, the error detection is at the receiver end only.

Q. Which flow control do you think is more suited for RT communication

requirements?
 Real-time Embedded Systems- Lecture 06

Real-time communication abstractions

Building Automation Factory Automation
Automotive
Representative Applications

High Level Standards

Device Net

Protocol Implementations

CAN Ethernet, LonTalk Fieldbus Profibus, Modbus DATAC

Media Access Control

Binary CSMA/CD Token Passing TDMA

Countdown
 Real-time Embedded Systems- Lecture 06

Media Access: Basic coding techniques for data transmission

Manchester Coding:
0 1
0 is encoded by a transition from Hi to Lo
1 is encoded by a transition from Lo to Hi

Q. How would the Byte 11010001 be encoded?

 Real-time Embedded Systems- Lecture 06

Media Access: Basic coding techniques for data transmission contd..

Non-return to zero encoding

Send a 0 as Lo
Send a 1 as Hi

Uses a end bit and a sync bit – having opposite signs

Thus 11010001 shall be coded as:

END END

1 1 0 1 000 1

SYNC SYNC
 Real-time Embedded Systems- Lecture 06

Media Access

Polling: Master polls the slave nodes which send messages when polled.
Slaves communicate amongst one another through the master

TDMA: Master synchronizes the clocks of all slaves. Each node transmits
during a pre-designated time slot.

1 2 3 4 5
time slots
Master Node 1 Node 2 Node 3 Node 4
 Real-time Embedded Systems- Lecture 06

Token passing- Explicit and Implicit

Explicit Token Passing: A token or a signal is passed from node to node across the
network (forming a virtual ring). Only the owner (token holder)
can transmit at any given instant.
Tokens are piggy-backed on data bearing messages.
Message prioritization is possible. A token could be a number
indicating which node should transmit next.
Recovery mechanism has to be devised- node bearing the token
goes down.

2 3

Node#1 Node#2 Node#3

Advantages: Determinism (bounded latency), Easy re-configurability

 Real-time Embedded Systems- Lecture 06

Token passing- contd…

Implicit Token Passing:

TDMA is a typical example of this. Another example is CSMA/CA( Collision Sense

Multiple Access/Collision Avoidance)

CSMA/CA
 Real-time Embedded Systems- Lecture 06

Media Access contd..

CSMA/CD (Collision Sense Multiple Access/ Collision Detect)

•This is a system where each computer listens to the cable before sending anything through
•the network.

•If the network is clear, the computer will transmit.

•Else, If some other node is already transmitting on the cable, the computer will wait and try again
• when the line is clear.

•A collision occurs when two modes try to transmit at the same instant.

•Each computer then backs off and waits a random amount of time before attempting
• to retransmit, when a collision occurs.

More on this in the section: Ethernet as a communication protocol for

RT systems.
 Real-time Embedded Systems- Lecture 06

Media Access contd..

Binary Countdown

•Each node has a unique identification number.

•Each node willing to transmit a signal send a string of bits representing the binary value of its
identification number.

• as soon as a node transmits a 0, the bus is in the dominant state.

• the bus is in the recessive state if all the nodes transmit a 1.

•A node drops out of competition if it detects a dominant state while trying to transmit a
recessive state
 Real-time Embedded Systems- Lecture 06

Media Access contd..

Binary Countdown Explained

Lets say that nodes 4 and 5 start competing for the network at the same instant. This
is
what happens:

Node 4 transmits a 1 (Hi) & Node 5 transmits a 1 (Hi)

The bus is now in a recessive state and both are xmitting 1,

so this goes through
Node 4 transmits a 0(Lo) & Node 5 transmits a 0(Lo)
The bus is now in a dominant state and none of the nodes xmit
1, so this goes through

Node 4 transmits a 0(Lo) & Node 5 transmits a 1(Hi)

The bus is now in the dominant state as node 4 xmits a 0, and therefore, node 5
fails to xmit a 1 (recessive bit) and hence opts out.
Real-time Embedded Systems- Lecture 06

Central issues in Embedded Networking

•Local and Global Message priority

Messages in a node are transmitted according to a local priority (highest priority message in
a node xmitted first) or a global priority (across all nodes). The global priority of a message
may be a function of the node’s inherent priority.

•Latency

•Determinism( depends largely on media access )

•Efficiency
Real-time Embedded Systems- Lecture 06

Message Latency

It is the time interval from the instant the message is enqueued for transmission to the instant
the last bit is received. The message has to be enqueued before the arbitration slot i.e. before
the node starts transmitting.

Latency reduction techniques:

Queue the messages just in time.

Schedule tasks in the order of priority of their output messages.

 Real-time Embedded Systems- Lecture 06

Efficiency

Message Efficiency: How many messages are actually useful at protocol level?

Total number of useful messages

Total number of messages sent

Bit-wise Efficiency: (Total number of useful data bits including portions of header
used for identifying )/(Total nos. bits transmitted)

Clearly both are protocol dependent

Q. Which of the two protocols viz. token passing and CAN has a higher message
efficiency?

Q. What is channel efficiency and how are these related to it?

 Real-time Embedded Systems- Lecture 06

Controller Area Network

Application

SOF
11 BIT IDENTIFIER IFS
Application Layer Host Controller
RTR

IDE
r0
Data Link CAN Controller
DLC

Physical Layer PAYLOAD

Transceiver
0-8 BYTES
CRC

ACK
CAN Bus Indicates priority.
Lower value, higher priority
EOF
Twisted pair with differential drivers &
120 ohm terminators
Uses NRZ coding with bit stuffing
 Real-time Embedded Systems- Lecture 06

Controller Area Network contd.

Physical Medium: Differential Drivers with Twisted pairs(120 ohm terminators)

Fibre Optic cables
Optical isolators

Media access: Uses NRZ coding and binary countdown (bit dominance)
Uses bit stuffing for long messages ( an opposite stuff bit
every 5 identical bits)

Q. How does the bit string 1111 1111 0000 0000 get coded with
stuff bits?

Q. Why is bit stuffing necessary?

Data stuffing impairs error detection.