Hard real-time communication with the timed token protocol: Current state and challenging problems

With the increasing use of distributed real-time systems, the ability of communication networks to handle real-time traffic is becoming more and more important. The timed token medium access control protocol, which has been now incorporated into several network standards such as FDDI and SAFENET due to its special timing property of bounded medium access time, is one of the most suitable and attractive candidate communication protocols for supporting distributed hard real-time applications. Extensive research has been conducted on using the timed token protocol to guarantee timely transmission of messages in a communication environment with hard real-time requirements. This paper intends to present a comprehensive review on recent advances in hard real-time communication with the timed token protocol. In addition, several challenging problems are identified.