Next-Generation MAC Technique for Priority Handling in Industrial Cyber-Physical Systems

TL;DR

This paper introduces DyFrag-MAC, a novel MAC protocol for industrial CPS that dynamically fragments data to prioritize urgent traffic, improving delay and throughput over existing protocols.

Contribution

The paper presents DyFrag-MAC, a new dynamic fragmentation scheme that enhances priority handling in industrial CPS networks, outperforming existing protocols like FROG-MAC and i-DSME.

Findings

DyFrag-MAC reduces average delay for urgent traffic.

DyFrag-MAC achieves higher throughput in heterogeneous traffic.

Dynamic fragmentation improves priority preemption capabilities.

Abstract

Next Generation Media Access Control (NGMA) techniques have been designed to support diverse applications with heterogeneous priorities. In industrial cyber-physical systems (CPS), the number of connected devices and systems is expected to grow significantly, demanding dependable and prompt network services. In this work, we present a novel scheme, Dynamic Fragmentation-MAC (DyFrag-MAC) that offers dynamic, differentiated channel access to the traffic of various priorities. DyFrag-MAC works on fragmenting the data of normal priority in order to support early delivery of urgent priority data. In prior work, urgent priority data either had to wait for the complete transmission of lower-priority packets or relied on multi-channel protocols to gain access. We compared the proposed fragmentation scheme with FROG-MAC and industrial Deterministic and Synchronous Multi-channel Extension (i-DSME). FROG-MAC fragmented the lower priority packets, but did not adjust the fragment size dynamically, whereas i-DSME utilized multiple channels and adaptive contention mechanisms; both protocols lack the ability to preempt ongoing lower-priority transmissions. Hence, the performance evaluation in terms of average delay and throughput reveals better performance of DyFRAG-MAC for the heterogeneous traffic.