Detailed Consideration of Graphical Calculation of Min-Plus Convolution in Deterministic Network Calculus

Abstract

The convolution operation used in deterministic network calculus differs from its counterpart known from the classic systems theory. A reason for this lies in the fact that the former is defined in terms of the so-called min-plus algebra. Therefore, it is oft difficult to realize how it really works. In these cases, its graphical interpretation can be very helpful. This paper is devoted to a topic of construction of the min-plus convolution curve. This is done here in a systematic way to avoid arriving at non-transparent figures that are presented in publications. Contrary to this, our procedure is very transparent and removes shortcomings of constructions known in the literature. Some examples illustrate its usefulness.