Re: realtime networking

[Richard Teltz <rich@immrc.eng.mcmaster.ca>]

On Thu, 3 Sep 1998, Mack wrote:

> Hi.
> 
> I consider doing some work on realtime networking protocol over ethernet.
> (under linux of course)
> 
> 1. Has anyone already done something similar ?  I couldn't find anything,
>    but I want to be sure before I start working.
> 2. Any interesting ideas/suggestions for the implementation ?

You should have a look at the NDDS product from Real Time Innovations
(www.rti.com).  It is a real time data delivery system based on UDP/IP.
It is an add-on product for the VxWorks RTOS.  It has been a while
since I looked at this but I recall the website being a good source.
There are also a few white papers regarding this work that are good
(it was originally started at Stanford for distributed robot control
and has been a commercial product for approx 3-5 years I think).   

> Any interesting thoughts about this ?
> Will such project be useful for more people, if I do it ?
> 
> 	Yoav

I would be very interested in this work.  We have developed an
"Open Architecture" machine controller that is based on an IP
client / server design.  I am currently porting it to RTLinux
and am trying to find a way around having to pass all messages
through the LINUX 'process' (usually the lowest priority process 
under the RTLinux kernel).  


best regards

Richard Teltz
principal research engineer
Intelligent Machines and Manufacturing Research Centre (IMMRC)
McMaster University 

RT Linux Home Page: http://rtlinux.cs.nmt.edu/~rtlinux