sfiCAN: A Star-Based Physical Fault-Injection Infrastructure for CAN Networks

The dependability requirements of distributed embedded control systems demand appropriate evaluation techniques. Requirements of embedded systems are often tested by means of fault injection. However, for the controller area network (CAN), the potential of this technique has not been fully exploited. This paper presents sfiCAN - a novel physical fault-injection infrastructure that relies on a CAN-compliant hub that allows the injection of faults independently into each node's transmitted or received bits, thereby recreating fault scenarios beyond the capabilities of other injectors for CAN. Notably, it is the first injector that is able to test the behavior under inconsistency scenarios of arbitrary software for CAN nodes and the first that makes it possible to inject faults that may lead to integrity errors without requiring any modifications to the nodes' software or CAN controllers. Moreover, sfiCAN allows the remote and flexible configuration of fault injection and the retrieval of accurate information about the subsequent behavior of the nodes.