An enhanced worst-case end-to-end evaluation method for SpaceWire networks

Abstract

The SpaceWire network is scheduled to be used as the sole on-board network for future ESA satellites. However, at the moment, network designers do not have tools to ensure that critical temporal deadlines are met when using best-effort wormhole networks like SpaceWire. In a previous paper, we have presented a first method to compute an upper-bound on the worst-case end-to-end delay of flows traversing such networks. However, its scope was limited by restrictive assumptions on the traffic patterns. Thus, in this paper, we propose a new network model that removes those limitations and allows worst-case delay analysis on SpaceWire networks with any traffic pattern.