Measurement analysis of IP-based process control networks

Abstract

This paper presents a measurement study of the traffic traces from the industrial process control IP networks. We present some interesting and unique traffic characteristics of the IP networks which support the control of manufacturing and precision-control machines. Understanding their traffic behaviors would help us to operate the fault-tolerant control IP networks, where the cost of network malfunctioning is far more severe than ordinary IP data networks. We observe rather steady and cyclic traffic patterns in the collected traces between the control IP network entities, mainly PLCs and process controllers. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.