Queuing Enhancements for In-Vehicle Time-Sensitive Streams Using Power Line Communications

Power line communication (PLC) technology enables existing direct current power lines in an automobile to be used for data transmissions. Due to its potential for cost reduction and energy saving, PLC is an attractive supplement to the Ethernet in next generation in-vehicle networks. This paper considers using HomePlug Green PHY (HomePlug GP) as an in-vehicle PLC network protocol due to its low cost, compact size, universal applicability, strong reliability and reduced overhead. To address the challenge of long latency in data transfer by HomePlug GP, we propose two queuing enhancements to improve the real-time performance of HomePlug GP. Specifically, we introduce the virtual collision mechanism to improve the fairness of queuing. We further apply the principle of credit-based shaping in IEEE 802.1 Audio Video Bridging over the HomePlug GP to meet the latency requirements of different network traffic. OMNeT++ simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the two proposed enhancements.