Design and Performance Analysis of Windows-based Serial-Socket Bridge

Abstract

Serial port is an ancient hardware port but difficult to be replaced. There are still many special devices in the use of it. However, In the Microsoft Windows, the serial port programming is becoming increasingly difficult. This article not only describes the SerialSocket Bridge software structure of the Windows operating system, but also analyses the relevant hardware and software structure, and pointed out the possible bottlenecks. The software will map the serial port operation to the socket port operation, to replace the Serial-to-RJ45 Converter hardware, and will not take up the valuable physical network port resources. We tested the processor usage on a variety of different baud rates on an Intel i5 processor's computer. We have found that high baud rate serial transmission (more than 115200) with a certain time interval is more efficient than continuous low baud transmission. In addition, the operating environment is also important for runtime reliability.