Using cut-through forwarding to retain the real-time properties of Profibus over hybrid wired/wireless architectures

The benefits of wireless extensions in industrial networks are well recognized as long as the integration of the wireless and fieldbus domains will be capable of retaining the real-time and dependability quality of the current wired industrial networking solutions. In this paper, the architecture and the operation of a cut-through forwarding device are described, to be used in broadcasting, hybrid wired/wireless Profibus systems. Analytical models of the delay overhead introduced due to frame forwarding are presented. It is shown that the usage of cut-through forwarding devices relaxes the bit-rate requirements in the radio segments, while it drastically improves the inherent advantages and reduces the drawbacks of hybrid transmission media architectures, which are based on a single Medium Access Control domain.