Efficient AVB-aware Scheduling for Critical Traffic in Time-sensitive Networks

Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) enables deterministic mixed-criticality communication over standard Ethernet through time-aware scheduling (IEEE 802.1Qbv) for Scheduled Traffic (ST) and via Credit-Based Shaping (CBS) for Audio-Video Bridging (AVB) traffic. Existing scheduling methods often prioritize ST schedules and require iterative feedback loops between ST-schedule generation and AVB schedulability analysis to ensure the timing of both classes. We propose a novel approach called EAST (Efficient AVB-aware Scheduling for TSN) that improves runtime and schedulability by introducing a constraint-driven approach that decouples AVB analysis from ST schedule synthesis. We first perform a Worst-Case Response Time (WCRT) analysis to determine the maximum ST interference each AVB stream can tolerate without missing its deadline. This interference bound is then translated into temporal constraints o the ST scheduler, ensuring that both ST and AVB traffic remain schedulable without requiring multiple iterations of generating ST schedules and checking AVB schedulability. The resulting formulation guarantees end-to-end latency bounds for both ST and AVB streams while drastically reducing schedule synthesis time. Synthetic and real-world test cases show that EAST reduces runtime by several orders of magnitude compared to prior methods, while maintaining or improving overall schedulability.