Network Bandwidth Optimization of Ethernet-Based Streaming Applications in Automotive Embedded Systems

Modern cars are equipped with an increasing number of electronic systems which encompass comfort, security, and infotainment related features. The complexity of the physical and logical network topology as well as the bandwidth requirements are steadily increasing. Therefore, a bus standard that can handle upcoming application requirements and is suitable for the automotive environment is needed. One possibility is the use of Ethernet/IP - both standards are widespread and have proven to be very reliable and robust, however they were formerly not designed for embedded systems. Previous work shows that the achievable bandwidth on embedded systems lies far below the theoretical achievable line rate speed of Ethernet. This paper focuses on improving the networking performance of automotive embedded systems which send Ethernet-based data into a network. It highlights several system variants and evaluates the achievable performance with consideration of the necessary hardware and software changes.