SbDN: Source-based TSN-Grade Deterministic Networking using Commodity Switches

2026-08-17

AI Summary

This study addresses the high deployment costs and specialized hardware dependencies of Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) by proposing SbDN, a source-based deterministic network architecture. By centralizing scheduling intelligence within the controller and leveraging multi-agent collaboration, time partitioning, and traffic prioritization, this approach enables commodity switches to provide TSN-grade deterministic guarantees. Formal verification confirms that the system satisfies latency constraints and supports runtime reconfiguration. Experimental results demonstrate 100% admission rates for critical traffic with millisecond-level scheduling overhead. Notably, SbDN achieves superior latency and throughput performance compared to standard TSN at significantly reduced cost, effectively facilitating the widespread adoption of affordable deterministic networking solutions without requiring proprietary hardware infrastructure.

Abstract

Deterministic networking is essential for safety-critical applications in automotive, industrial, and aerospace systems, where bounded end-to-end latency must be guaranteed for time-critical traffic. Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) provides the mechanisms to achieve such guarantees, but its deployment requires expensive TSN-capable switches at every hop and complex per-switch configuration that hinders runtime reconfiguration. This paper presents SbDN, a Multi-Agent Source-based architecture that achieves TSN-grade determinism using commodity Ethernet switches. SbDN moves all scheduling intelligence to a centralized controller composed of three cooperating agents and enforces the computed configurations exclusively at the source endpoints, leaving switches as simple forwarding elements. We propose two methods: Temporal Network Partitioning (TNP), which provides strict temporal isolation on pure FIFO switches, and Traffic Prioritization (TP), which leverages strict-priority queuing at switches to enable work-conserving best-effort traffic. Both methods are formally proven to guarantee that all admitted time-critical flows meet their end-to-end deadlines. Evaluation across 40 benchmark configurations on two topologies shows that TNP and TP achieve 100\% admission of time-critical traffic in every scenario, with scheduling times in the low-millisecond range suitable for safe runtime reconfiguration. Compared to a standard TSN baseline, SbDN delivers superior time-critical latency at a fraction of the switch infrastructure cost, while offering competitive best-effort throughput through the choice between the two methods.

Problem

• Deterministic Networking
• Time-Sensitive Networking
• Commodity Switches
• Runtime Reconfiguration
• End-to-end Latency

Innovation

• Source-based Scheduling
• Commodity Switches
• Temporal Network Partitioning
• Multi-Agent Controller
• Deterministic Networking