Atacama: An Open FPGA-Based Platform for Mixed-Criticality Communication in Multi-segmented Ethernet Networks

VEGa: A High Performance Vehicular Ethernet Gateway on Hybrid FPGA

“…FlexRay) described in Schmidt et al [17], Kim et al [16] and Seo et al [19]. Our architecture also outperforms the FPGAbased Ethernet switching infrastructure Atacama (Carvajal et al [7]), though the margin is small (1.3× lower latency at 128-byte priority data). Further improvements in latency can be achieved by enhancing the Ethernet MAC/PHY modules (over the standard MAC/PHY modules that we have used in our platform) at the expense increased hardware resources and limited portability [34].…”

“…This allows us to measure end-to-end latencies in all possible combinations: Real-time network ↔ Non-real-time network, Non-real-time ↔ Non-real-time and Real-time (FlexRay/Ethernet) → Real-time (Ethernet) ← Non-real-time cross traffic. The frame sizes and rates for our evaluation were generated based on the case studies in [40] and in [7] for FlexRay and Ethernet networks respectively. Fig.…”

“…As observed, our architecture outperforms gateway structures based on software-based approaches (Lim et al [23] {simulation results}, Kim et al [20], Yang et al [18], and Müller et al [22]) and FPGA-based gateways for traditional networks (Sander et al [5]). The proposed architecture also provides over 300× lower latency (priority mode, 8-byte message) than automotive-grade microcontroller-based gateways between traditional networks (LIN, CAN, and Atacama [7] Inter-domain Priority [23] Inter-domain Priority [20] FlexRay-CAN [18] Time-triggered [22] Latency (µs) Fig. 13: Comparison of end-to-end latencies of VEGa with other implementations from literature.…”

“…In the case of generic networks, FPGAs have been widely employed in line-rate switching systems for high performance Ethernet [7], [33], where custom architecture design offers low-latency switching performance. FPGA-based custom network interface modules were shown to offer improved switching latency over off-the-shelf components in Ethernet networks supporting real-time high-bandwidth communication [34].…”

“…Extending these architectures for Ethernet backbone networks is impractical since they are optimised for low-bandwidth legacy networks like CAN and FlexRay which have very different properties compared to standard Ethernet (priority-driven and time-triggered v/s best-effort). FPGAs are widely used in general networking due to their ability to offer low-latency switching [6], [7]. Although a standalone Ethernet switch on an FPGA can cater to the performance requirements in vehicles, the switch architecture must be significantly adapted to support the deterministic nature and real-time requirements of automotive systems.…”