With the advance of automation technology,the scale of industrial communication networks at field level is growing.Guaranteeing real-time performance of these networks is therefore becoming an increasingly difficult task.This paper addresses the optimization of device allocation in industrial Ethernet networks with real-time constraints (DAIEN-RC).Considering the inherent diversity of real-time requirements of typical industrial applications,a novel optimization criterion based on relative delay is proposed.A hybrid genetic algorithm incorporating a reduced variable neighborhood search (GA-rVNS) is developed for DAIEN-RC.Experimental results show that the proposed novel scheme achieves a superior performance compared to existing schemes,especially for large scale industrial networks.
