Event Notification in CAN-Based Sensor Networks

Preventive and reactive maintenance require the collection of an ever-increasing amount of information from industrial plants and other complex systems such as those based on robotized cells, a need that can be fulfilled by means of a suitable event notification mechanism. At the same time, timing and delivery reliability requirements in those scenarios are typically less demanding than those in other cases, thus enabling the adoption of best-effort notification approaches. This paper presents, evaluates, and compares some of those approaches, based on either standard Controller Area Network (CAN) messaging or a recently proposed protocol extension called CAN with eXtensible in-frame Reply (CAN XR). In the second case, the combined use of Bloom filters is also envisaged to increase flexibility. Results show that the latter approaches are advantageous in a range of event generation rates and network topologies of practical relevance.