A Robust Scheduling of Cyclic Traffic for Integrated Wired and Wireless Time-Sensitive Networks

Abstract

Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) is a toolbox of technologies that enable deterministic communication over Ethernet. A key area has been TSN's time-aware traffic shaping (TAS), which supports stringent end-to-end latency and reliability requirements. Configuration of TAS requires the computation of a network-wide traffic schedule, which is particularly challenging with integrated wireless networks (e.g., 5G, Wi-Fi) due to the stochastic nature of wireless links. This paper introduces a novel method for configuring TAS, focusing on cyclic traffic patterns and jitter of wireless links. We formulate a linear program that computes a network-wide time-aware schedule, robust to wireless performance uncertainties. The given method enables robust scheduling of multiple TSN frames per transmission window using a tunable robustness parameter ({\Gamma}). To reduce computational complexity, we also propose a sequential batch-scheduling heuristic that runs in polynomial time. Our approach is evaluated by using different network topologies and wireless link characteristics, demonstrating that the heuristic can schedule 90% of 6500 requested TSN streams in a large topology.