NETWORK GATEWAY FOR TIME-CRITICAL AND MISSION-CRITICAL NETWORKS

• US 20110075677A1
• Filed: 12/07/2010
• Published: 03/31/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 06/10/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: E.S. Embedded Solutions 3000 Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Larisa Tsirinsky-Feigin
• Inventors: TSIRINSKY-FEIGIN, Larisa
• Granted Patent: US 8,705,541 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/401
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/18565 Arrangements for preventing unauthorised access or for providing user protection arrangements for secret or secure communication H04L9/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/18586 Arrangements for data transporting, e.g. for an end to end data transport or check
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/66 Arrangements for connecting between networks having differing types of switching systems, e.g. gateways
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/10 Flow control; Congestion control
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/22 Traffic shaping
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/2416 Real-time traffic
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/2483 involving identification of individual flows
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0236 Filtering by address, protocol, port number or service, e.g. IP-address or URL
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0263 Rule management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/51 Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/08 Protocols for interworking; Protocol conversion
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/085 specially adapted for interworking of IP-based networks with other networks

Abstract

A network gateway for time-critical and mission-critical networks is provided. The network gateway comprises a decision unit for determining, based on at least one network event; a processing unit for processing frames determined to be associated with the at least one service; a queue for buffering frames; and a traffic shaper for performing bandwidth management on frames stored in the queue.

Claims

1. A network gateway, comprising:

a decision unit for determining, based on at least one network event, if each frame of incoming frames are associated with at least one service;

a processing unit for processing frames determined to be associated with the at least one service;

a queue for buffering frames; and

a traffic shaper for performing bandwidth management on frames stored in the queue.

2. The network gateway of claim 1, wherein the at least one service comprises at least one of:

retransmission of the frames, redirection of frames to one or more destinations, dropping of frames, address resolution, protocol conversion, bandwidth management, prioritization of frames, signalling, alarming, and data encryption.

3. The network gateway of claim 2, wherein the protocol conversion service enables converting at least Internet protocol (IP) frames to non-IP frames and converting non-IP protocol frames to IP frames.

4. The network gateway of claim 3, wherein the non-IP is a protocol including at least:

MIL-STD-1553, RS 485, RS 422, RS 235, and Hotlink and wherein the digital video format includes at least H.264 and MPEG-4.

5. The network gateway of claim 1, wherein the at least one network event comprises at least one of:

a predefined data pattern, a predefined frame sequence, a virtual channel, and any combination of network addresses.

6. The network gateway of claim 5, wherein the virtual channel carries traffic that always originates from the same source IP address and port number and directed to the same destination IP address and port number.

7. The network gateway of claim 1, wherein the decision unit includes a service table for mapping the at least one network event associated with an incoming frame to the at least one service.

8. The network gateway of claim 7, wherein the service table is a look-up table.

9. The network gateway of claim 7, wherein the decision unit forwards frames not being associated with a service directly to the queue.

10. The network gateway of claim 1, wherein the decision unit does not receive new frames while determining if an incoming frame is associated with at least one service.

11. The network gateway of claim 1 is adapted to connect and facilitate the communication between time-critical and mission-critical networks, wherein time-critical and mission-critical includes at least a ground network, an aerial network, and an IP military network.

12. The network gateway of claim 11, further comprising an airborne Ethernet switch.

13. A method for enabling efficient data communication between a ground network and an aerial network, comprising:

transparently intercepting a frame flowing between the ground network and the aerial network;

determining if at least one service is associated with the intercepted frame;

processing the intercepted frame according to the at least one service being associated with the frame; and

relaying the processed frame to a data link between the ground network and the aerial network.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

performing bandwidth management operations on the processed frame or on a frame that was not processed, wherein the bandwidth management operations include at least one of buffering frames and rate shaping of frames.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein determining if the least one service is associated with the intercepted frame further comprising:

searching a service table to detect the at least one service associated with the at least one network event.

16. The method of claim 13, wherein the at least one service comprises at least one of:

retransmission of the frames, redirection of frames to one or more destinations, dropping of frames, address resolution, protocol conversion, bandwidth management, prioritization of frame, signalling, alarming, and data encryption.

17. The method of claim 13, wherein the protocol conversion service enables converting at least Internet protocol (IP) frames to non-IP frames and converting non-IP frames to IP frames.

18. The method of claim 13, wherein the at least one network event comprises at least one of:

a predefined data pattern, a predefined frame sequence, a virtual channel, and any combination of network addresses.

19. The method of claim 13, wherein at least one of the ground network and the aerial network is a time-critical and a mission-critical network.

21. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 19, further comprising:

performing bandwidth management operations on the processed frame or on a frame that was not processed, wherein the bandwidth management operations include at least one of buffering frames and rate shaping of frames.

20. A non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon computer executable code when executed causing a processor to perform the process of:

transparently intercepting a frame flowing between the ground network and the aerial network;

determining if at least one service is associated with the intercepted frame;

processing the intercepted frame according to the at least one service being associated with the frame; and

relaying the processed frame to a data link between the ground network and the aerial network.