Synchronization and communication protocol for remote process

摘要

The invention relates to a communication protocol whereby a master device is virtually connected to N slave devices, where the number N is typically smaller than 7 but may be as large as 21. In particular, the invention concerns a system as above having an isochronous cyclical architecture based on switched Ethernet 100BaseT. The protocol reduces the adjustment jitter by synchronizing the remote processes as to input reading and output writing for each slave device in the network, thereby preventing clashes between Ethernet packets. The protocol auto-configures within less than 100 msec from the network power-on and auto-detects the network topology not only in the respect of the slave devices that are present, but also of the number of switches, while assigning its own timings.