A Local Interconnect Network Controller for Resource-Constrained Automotive Devices

As the amount of data for automotive systems is increased, a dedicated communication controller for in-vehicle networks is required. This paper proposes a local interconnect network (LIN) controller for resource-constrained devices. The designed LIN controller efficiently reduces the workload of target devices by processing the LIN frame header, data response, and protocol errors. To demonstrate the feasibility of design, a Cortex-M0 is employed as a main processor and connected to the LIN controller. We implemented a LIN node by programming the processor, and the functionality of LIN controller was verified with a LIN frame analyzer and hardware scope. In addition, we analyzed the affection of communication loads on the processor and evaluated the benefits of LIN controller.