The Effectiveness of Checksums for Embedded Control Networks

• Published in: IEEE transactions on dependable and secure computing 2009-01, Vol.6 (1), p.59-72
• Main Authors: Maxino, T.C., Koopman, P.J.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Bursting; Codes; Communication channels; Communication/Networking and Information Technology; Complement; Computation; Computational efficiency; Control systems; Cost engineering; Costs; Cybersecurity; Cyclic redundancy check; Cyclic redundancy check codes; Data communication; Data communications; Data integrity; Data transmission; Digital Object Identifier; Embedded system; Embedded systems; Error analysis; Error correction; Error correction & detection; Error detection; Error-checking; Hardware; Network adapters; Network communication; Network communications; Networks; Protocols; Real-time and embedded systems; Real-time systems and embedded systems; Studies; Time factors
• ISSN: 1545-5971; 1941-0018
• DOI: 10.1109/TDSC.2007.70216

Embedded control networks commonly use checksums to detect data transmission errors. However, design decisions about which checksum to use are difficult because of a lack of information about the relative effectiveness of available options. We study the error detection effectiveness of the following commonly used checksum computations: exclusive or (XOR), two's complement addition, one's complement addition, Fletcher checksum, Adler checksum, and cyclic redundancy codes (CRCs). A study of error detection capabilities for random independent bit errors and burst errors reveals that XOR, two's complement addition, and Adler checksums are suboptimal for typical network use. Instead, one's complement addition should be used for networks willing to sacrifice error detection effectiveness to reduce compute cost, Fletcher checksum for networks looking for a balance of error detection and compute cost, and CRCs for networks willing to pay a higher compute cost for significantly improved error detection.