On the Benefits of Traffic "Reprofiling" -- The Multiple Hops Case -- Part II

2026-04-27

AI Summary

This work addresses the challenge of providing strict end-to-end delay guarantees in packet-switched networks employing simple schedulers—such as static priority or FIFO—commonly found in automotive and avionics systems. The authors propose a novel approach based on ingress traffic reprofiling, which jointly optimizes traffic shaping and scheduling strategies across multi-hop paths. For the first time, reprofiling is systematically integrated into networks with such basic schedulers, revealing an intrinsic coupling between scheduling capability and reprofiling complexity. A network calculus–based joint optimization framework is developed to formalize this relationship. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method effectively meets hard delay constraints while significantly reducing bandwidth overhead, thereby validating its efficacy and scalability in practical deployment scenarios.

Abstract

Delivering hard delay guarantees over packet networks is increasingly important to applications ranging from automotive systems, avionics, industrial control, etc. Traffic control and schedulers play an essential role in enforcing such guarantees. In this paper, we focus on ``simple'' static priority and FIFO schedulers, and explore how reprofiling flows entering the network, i.e., proactively shaping them to a different traffic profile, can deliver delay guarantees with less bandwidth. To that end, we formulate a joint optimization framework and develop efficient algorithms to solve it. Extensive evaluations across both realistic and synthetic topologies demonstrate that, as with more sophisticated schedulers, reprofiling flows is beneficial. They also highlight an intuitive coupling between a scheduler's capability and its ability to leverage more complex reprofiling solutions.

Problem

• delay guarantees
• traffic reprofiling
• static priority scheduling
• FIFO scheduling
• bandwidth efficiency

Innovation

• traffic reprofiling
• delay guarantees
• static priority scheduling
• FIFO scheduler
• joint optimization