Fault Injection and Reliability Analysis on Time-Sensitive Networking

Time-sensitive networking (TSN) provides high-performance deterministic communication using time scheduling. In theory, the rigor of a TSN schedule is the key to achieving deterministic communication. However, real devices are prone to errors. TSN-based applications require both fault-tolerance and end-to-end latency guarantee. In this work, we identify the limitations of the TSN scheduling method, enhancing the simulation model NeSTiNg to enable fault-injection. The fault-injection is done by introducing new components, and modules to emulate permanent, transient, and intermittent faults with the aid of probability distributions. We evaluate the effectiveness of the fault-injection comparing the latency and jitter results to the ones expected by the schedule generator TSNsched, also presenting a technique to increase network reliability on faulty scenarios. Finally, we demonstrate through experiments the impact of applying the fault-tolerant scheduling approach described in this article, achieving jitter-free schedules regardless of the presence of faults in the network.