I. THE FTT PARADIGM

protocol was proposed in 2006 [1] as a realization of the FTT paradigm [2] specifically adapted to switched Ethernet. This paradigm first appeared in 1998 implemented on CAN, the FTT-CAN protocol [3], followed by an implementation on shared Ethernet in 2002 [4]. The FTT paradigm is a framework to develop distributed real-time systems that are reconfigurable and adaptive. It has been successfully used for dynamic Quality-of-Service (QoS) management in control applications [5] and video transmission [6], and for dynamic reconfiguration of real-time systems [7] that are either open or include subsystems that operate occasionally. Essentially, it consists of carrying out time-triggered scheduling online in an open fashion, thus its name. To support prompt and consistent updates in the scheduling, FTT uses a master/multi-slave architecture where a master node schedule