As a side project we are working on a new internal network for a small UAV and will base it on 100mbit Ethernet instead of serial coms that's usually used for these types of aircraft. We have gone through the entire network and shown that we can handle virtually every failure mode on all devices except for one critical component: the main switch. The flight computer is connected to a switch that distributes data to all other devices on the network. If this switch goes down all internal coms on the aircraft fails, which is less than ideal!
So, what we are wondering is, is it possible to run two identical switches in parallel? Splicing the cables and running them through both switches so that if one fails the second is still relaying the data? My guess is no, so to follow up, is there another way of quickly identifying failure of a switch and rerouting traffic through another one? By quickly we're ideally talking uninterrupted, or less than 1 sec from failure to having the network back up.
Thanks! I'm a complete rookie on robust networks so any help or ideas are greatly appreciated!