Bandwidth usage and network latency in a conveyor system with Ethernet-based communication between controllers

Switched Ethernets are increasingly being used in industrial applications such as the control of conveyor systems and the synchronization of axles in complex machinery. The timely delivery of control messages is a central concern in these applications. We show how a queueing model was used to predict traffic flow and delay in the control networks of a conveyor system. The model indicates that the anticipated level of bandwidth usage will be low on even the most heavily loaded links, and that the resulting end-to-end message latencies will be quite small.