Evaluation of response time distributions for controller area network messages

The response time distribution (RTD) for messages on the controller area network (CAN) represents the probability of experiencing each possible response time. The existing literature suggests to use the RTD for the design of real-time applications based on CAN. This paper shows that the RTD does not capture the response time behavior on CAN well due to gradual clock drifts among CAN nodes. Instead, the paper defines the concept of a local response time distribution (LRTD) and proposes to realize this LRTD by weak synchronization on CAN.