INTELLIGENT STAR COUPLER FOR TIME TRIGGERED COMMUNICATION PROTOCOL AND METHOD FOR COMMUNICATING BETWEEN NODES WITHIN A NETWORK USING A TIME TRIGGER PROTOCOL

摘要

This invention relates to a star coupler connected to a plurality of nodes within a network using a time triggered protocol on a time slot basis. The invention further relates to a network including a cluster having at least one node. Further, the invention relates to a method for communication between nodes within a network using a time trigger protocol. To provide a star coupler, which is able to increase the bandwidth and to communicate with low propagation delay for communicating the relevant data it is proposed to provide a star coupler (11) comprising a switch (12) having a plurality of input branches and output branches, wherein a switch controller (13) is provided for controlling the switch (12), further comprising means (14, 15) for deriving knowledge about the protocol timing, which knowledge is used for selectively forward data in a certain time slot to at least one predetermined output.