Indian Journal of Science and Technology

Abstract

The Controller Area Network (CAN)is a vehicle bus standard for over two decades. In recent times CAN finds application in industrial automation as well, CAN is mostly employed for safety critical applications where low response time is essential. With the advent of wireless technology, there is a possibility for CAN messages to be exchanged wirelessly; there are several applications where wireless exchange of CAN messages is preferred. The Wireless Controller Area Network (WCAN) is a new approach of using CAN message-based protocol in wireless network. Message with higher priority gets transmitted first into the medium. This work investigates the possibilities to wirelessly communicate Controller Area Network (CAN) messages using the radio protocol IEEE 802.15.4, which is a very quick protocol and so the delays and jitter can be ignored in a small network. This work involves the implementation of Wireless Controller Area Network (WCAN) on FlexDevel board manufactured by Eberspascher. The idea is modelled and is shown to be a very smart way of sending CAN-data without using wires. SAE benchmark for Class C automobiles for safety critical control applications is used to validate the results.
Keywords: CAN, IEEE 802.15.4, Response Time Analysis, WCAN, WCAN Implementation