In‐Vehicle Communication Systems

One key component in the modular design architecture is the in‐vehicle communication network, which allows Electronic Control Units, sensors, and other components to communicate with each other. The Controller Area Network (CAN) bus is the most widely used in‐vehicle communication network due to its simplicity. This chapter provides an introduction to the following in‐vehicle communication systems: CAN, FlexRay, and CANopen. FlexRay is meant to gradually replace CAN as the default in‐vehicle communication network. CANopen is a communication protocol and device profile specification for embedded systems used in automation. The CANopen communication protocol has support for network management, device monitoring, and communication between nodes, including a simple transport layer for message segmentation and desegmentation. CANopen distinguishes two basic data transmission mechanisms: the access to entries of the object dictionary through “Service Data Objects” and the exchange of process data through “Process Data Objects”.