The demand for higher bandwidth in automobiles is growing rapidly. On the one hand, all entertainment and connectivity elements, on the other hand, all control-related electronics.

As a result, automakers have added many computer-based systems that require interconnectivity. From a technical and economic point of view, the use of the latest innovations in Ethernet is the best option to meet this challenge.

Historically, automakers have avoided using packet-switched networks for multimedia applications due to their uncertainty. However, deterministic Ethernet solutions, such as AVB, can provide data streams with guaranteed bandwidth and deterministic latency for, for example, highly reliable and low-latency applications in automobiles.

Audio Video Bridging (AVB) is the generic name for a group of technical standards that allow time-synchronized, low-latency data streaming services over Ethernet. They were developed by the Audio Video Bridging Task Force of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). These include:

• IEEE 802.1BA: Audio Video Bridging (AVB) Systems
• IEEE 802.1AS: Timing and Synchronization for Time-Sensitive Applications
• IEEE 802.1Qat: Stream Retention Protocol (SRP)
• IEEE 802.1Qav: Forwarding and Queuing of Time-Sensitive Data Streams (FQTSS)

AVB works by reserving a small portion of the available Ethernet bandwidth for AVB traffic, and those types of packets are sent periodically in the allocated time slots. Since the bandwidth is reserved, there are no surges.