Scalable and Efficient GCL Scheduling for Time-Aware Shaping in Autonomous and Cyber-Physical Systems
Chengwei Zhang and
Yun Wang ()
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Chengwei Zhang: School of Computer Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 211189, China
Yun Wang: School of Computer Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 211189, China
Future Internet, 2025, vol. 17, issue 8, 1-25
Abstract:
The evolution of the internet towards supporting time-critical applications, such as industrial cyber-physical systems (CPSs) and autonomous systems, has created an urgent demand for networks capable of providing deterministic, low-latency communication. Autonomous vehicles represent a particularly challenging use case within this domain, requiring both reliability and determinism for massive data streams—a requirement that traditional Ethernet technologies cannot satisfy. This paper addresses this critical gap by proposing a comprehensive scheduling framework based on Time-Aware Shaping (TAS) within the Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) standard. The framework features two key contributions: (1) a novel baseline scheduling algorithm that incorporates a sub-flow division mechanism to enhance schedulability for high-bandwidth streams, computing Gate Control Lists (GCLs) via an iterative SMT-based method; (2) a separate heuristic-based computation acceleration algorithm to enable fast, scalable GCL generation for large-scale networks. Through extensive simulations, the proposed baseline algorithm demonstrates a reduction in end-to-end latency of up to 59% compared to standard methods, with jitter controlled at the nanosecond level. The acceleration algorithm is shown to compute schedules for 200 data streams in approximately one second. The framework’s effectiveness is further validated on a real-world TSN hardware testbed, confirming its capability to achieve deterministic transmission with low latency and jitter in a physical environment. This work provides a practical and scalable solution for deploying deterministic communication in complex autonomous and cyber-physical systems.
Keywords: time-sensitive networking; time-aware shaping; scheduling algorithms; gate control list; autonomous systems; in-vehicle networks; deterministic communication (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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