American Journal of Signal Processing.

2011; 1(2): 40-45

DOI: 10.5923/j.ajsp.20110102.07

Design of an In-Vehicle Network (Using LIN, CAN and

FlexRay), Gateway and its Diagnostics Using
Vector CANoe
Rishvanth1, D. Valli2, K. Ganesan2,*

1
B.Tech in Electronics and Communication Engineering, VIT University, Vellore
2
TIFAC-CORE in Automotive Infotronics, VIT University, Vellore, 632014, India

Abstract Today’s vehicles include a complex symbiosis of intelligent electronic systems and integrated mechanical
structures. In-vehicle networks provide an efficient method of communication between the various electronic components in
an automobile. The communication protocols discussed in this paper are Local Interconnect Network (LIN), Controller Area
Network (CAN) and FlexRay. LIN is used in low speed applications, CAN are used in medium speed applications and
FlexRay is used in high speed applications. A gateway is a network node used to transfer data from one communication
protocol to another. Vector CANoe is an all-round tool for the development, testing and analysis of entire ECU networks and
individual ECUs. Vector CANoe uses a 3-phase development process that assists the user from the planning of the distributed
system to the implementation of it. In this paper we have explained how to create 3 different networks (LIN, CAN and
FlexRay) and also designed a gateway so that the messages can be transferred between different communication protocols.
To start with we tested the design of the gateway using simulations and subsequently we have connected the necessary
hardware and diagnosed the messages.
Keywords LIN, CAN, FlexRay, Gateway, Diagnostics

virtual and the physical bus for the simulation of the re-
1. Introduction mainder of the bus. After the development CANoe can be
used to analyze the physical network for bus statistics.
In an automobile the number of electronic components is The in-vehicle networking concepts are nowadays used in
increasing exponentially. In the automobiles manufactured safety systems such as collision avoidance systems[3]. Hy-
today number of electronic sensors and actuators are very brid Network, provides not only the communication func-
high so that point-to-point communication is not possible. tions of different in-vehicle subsystems, but also the con-
The main reasons being the large number of wires needed to trolling policy, authentication and human-computer interac-
connect all the components, non-availability of space and in tions, and can improve the safety and comfort of driving[4].
case of a failure the fault detection will be extremely difficult. The various control modules of a vehicle such as Engine
All these factors lead to the development of a distributed Control Modules, Transmission Control Modules and Body
system in which all the components are connected to various Control Modules etc. usually communicate with each other,
bus and the devices communicate with each other using in real time, helping in the operation of the vehicle[5,6]. The
standardized automotive protocols. LIN, CAN and FlexRay past few years have seen a large growth in the number and
are some of the protocols used in automobiles today for type of communication buses used in automobiles, trucks,
communicating between the various components. A gateway construction equipment, and military, among others[7]. Re-
is designed to transfer messages between different commu- cently FPGA based networking are used for high data rate
nication protocols[1,2]. and reliable in-vehicle communication[8]. The simulation
Vector CANoe is a tool that assists in the development of environment is the initial step to design cost effective,
the In-vehicle Network using various protocols. This tool flexible and deterministic in-vehicle networks suitable for
allows the user to simulate the various networks and the use in the next generation of vehicles[9]. People started using
gateway before the actual development process. During the switch-based network architecture and analyze the various
development process the tool can be used to integrate the routing schemes in terms of their performance in in-vehicle
networks[10].
* Corresponding author:
kganesan@vit.ac.in (K. Ganesan)
The paper is organized as follows: In section 2, we in-
Published online at http://journal.sapub.org/ajsp troduce the various protocols such as LIN, CAN and
Copyright © 2011 Scientific & Academic Publishing. All Rights Reserved FlexRay in sections 2.1, 2.2 and 2.3 respectively. Subse-
41 American Journal of Signal Processing. 2011; 1(2): 40-45

quently in section 2.4 we introduce the Vector CANoe tool higher priority information is gaining the bus access[14].
which is used for the development of the present system. In A CAN data frame is used for transmitting data and it can
section 3, we talk about the three phase development model transmit a maximum payload of 8 bytes. This frame includes
used for the present work. The various steps involved in the the message address, Data Code Length (DLC), checksum
design of network using Vector CANoe are explained in and the acknowledgement field. If a standard identifier is
detail in section 4. In the final section 5, we derive our con- used, the message identifier consists of 11 bits (as shown in
clusions. Fig.3 below) and if extended identifier is used it consists of
29 bits. All CAN messages are broadcast to every node, thus
node-specific filtering is required to receive the required
2. Concept of LIN, CAN and FlexRay messages.

2.1. LIN
LIN is a low speed asynchronous bus offering a data rate
of upto 20kbps; it is used in the non-critical applications. It is
a low cost and single wire communication network and it is
implemented using the UART/SCI interface in microcon-
trollers[11,12]. A LIN network uses master-slave architec- Figure 3. CAN Frame Format
ture as shown in Fig.1 below.
2.3. FlexRay
FlexRay is a serial communication technology offering a
data rate of up to 20Mbps designed for safety-critical areas
and in x-by-wire applications in an automobile. FlexRay
uses two channels for communication, namely Channel A
Figure 1. Master-Slave Architecture
and Channel B, each consisting of a pair of wires. FlexRay
The LIN master sends a frame header and the LIN slave communication is not restricted to any specific topology. To
responds to it by sending a frame. It consists of one master minimize the risk of failure, FlexRay provides for the re-
node and several slave nodes. The master node performs the dundant layout of the communication channels, time deter-
master task in addition to the slave task. The LIN frame minism of message transmission and error tolerance. Each of
consists of a frame header and response as shown in Fig. 2 the channels may be operated simultaneously at 10 Mbps or
below. The header contains the response identifier. One the redundant channel may be used to increase the data rate
slave node responds to the identifier and it transmits the to 20 Mbps. FlexRay network supports bus, star and hybrid
frame response and several slave nodes respond to the iden- network topologies[15,16].
tifier and receive the frame response. The response consists
of a data field and a checksum field.

Figure 2. LIN Frame

2.2. CAN
Figure 4. Principle of bus access
CAN is a medium speed asynchronous bus offering a data
rate of up to 1Mbps, it is used mainly in the sensor based A FlexRay communication cycle consists of Static slots
applications. It uses an unshielded twisted two-wire line as and Dynamic slots as shown in Fig.4 above. Static slots use
the physical transmission medium and it is implemented the TDMA method (Time Division Multiple Access) and
using CAN controller interface in a microcontroller. CAN Dynamic slots use FTDMA method (Flexible Time Division
network is based on a combination of multi-master archi- Multiple Access) for bus access. Static slot consists of equal
tecture and line topology. Any CAN node can place a mes- lengths and during the communication cycle each FlexRay
sage on the CAN bus[13]. The transmission of a CAN mes- node is guaranteed access to the communication bus ac-
sage does not follow any predetermined time sequence rather cording to the schedule. Then the communication cycle
it is event-driven. The bus access is initiated when the bus is consists of dynamic slots for messages in a FlexRay cluster
idle, by bus arbitration process, by which it is ensured that that should not be transmitted on a fixed time schedule but on
 Rishvanth et al.: Design of an In-Vehicle Network (using LIN, CAN and FlexRay), Gateway and its 42
Diagnostics Using Vector CANoe

an event driven basis. functionality of the system among different network nodes
Being Time division multiple access based communica- and refines the design to the level of the network node as
tion scheme, FlexRay network startup is performed on all shown in Fig.6 below. This includes defining messages and
nodes synchronously. A node called Coldstart node initiates selecting the baud rate of the bus. Finally the bus behaviour
startup process. Maximum three nodes are configured as of individual network nodes must be specified, e.g. in the
Coldstart nodes and at least two fault-free nodes are needed form of cycle times or more complex protocols. Then this
for startup process. The leading Coldstart node send collision information can be evaluated first by the simulation tool to
avoidance symbol to begin the startup process, it is then provide initial estimates of bus load and the latency times to
joined by other Coldstart nodes and afterwards by all other be expected at the prescribed baud rate. Afterwards, this
nodes. The Clock synchronization is achieved by calculation specification can also be utilized for testing in subsequent
of offset and rate correction value to compensate frequency phases.
and phase differences that occur among Electronic Control
Units[16].
A FlexRay frame consists of a header, payload and a
trailer. The header consists of 40 bits and it contains the
indicators, identifiers, Payload length, Header CRC and
cyclic count. The payload can consist of 0-254 bytes and the
payload length shows the length of the payload. The payload
consists of the static and the dynamic segment. To protect the
payload CRC method is used. The CRC is calculated with
the header, payload and the CRC polynomial defined in the
Figure 6. Phase 1
specification. The CRC sequence is appended to the payload
as a trailer as shown in Fig.5 below. For a more accurate study, a dynamic functional model of
the overall system is created. This involves specifying the
behaviour of the network nodes with regard to input and
output variables and the messages to be received and trans-
mitted. Especially useful here is an event-driven model with
a procedural description of behaviour. For example, the
model may describe how - after receiving a message (Event)
- the received data are to be further processed (procedural)
and how the result is to be output as a control variable. The
user must also specify the input variables to the simulation
tool, so that the time behaviour of network nodes and the
accumulation of messages can be simulated. The results of
the simulation serve to validate the design and can later be
used as a reference after implementation.
Figure 5. FlexRay Frame Format

2.4. Vector CANoe

CANoe is a universal development, test and analysis en-
vironment for serial bus systems, which is made available to
all project participants over the entire development process.
The system is supported in functional distribution, functional
checking and integration of the overall system. It is used to
obtain an ideal test environment by simulation of the re-
mainder of the bus and environment[17].
Figure 7. Phase 2

3. Three Phase Development Model 3.2. Phase 2: Implementation of Components with

The development process using Vector CANoe is based Simulation of Remainder of the Bus
on a multiple phase model which differentiates between After the first phase has been completed the design and
three development stages: development of individual network nodes is usually per-
formed by all participants, independently and in parallel as
3.1. Phase 1: Requirement Analysis and Design of the shown in Fig.7 below. The models for the other network
Network System nodes can now be used to simulate the remainder of the bus
First, the user responsible for design distributes the overall for testing of a developed network node. The tool requires an
43 American Journal of Signal Processing. 2011; 1(2): 40-45

interface to the real bus. For this, it must be able to conduct

the simulation in real time.

3.3. Phase 3: Integration of the Overall System

In this last development phase all real network nodes are
connected to the bus in a step-by-step manner as shown in
Fig.8 below. To accomplish this it must be possible to
"disconnect" the models one-by-one in the simulation of the
remainder of the bus. The tool serves increasingly as an
intelligent analysis tool which observes the message traffic
between the real network nodes on the bus and compares the
results with the specified requirements.
Figure 10. Vector LIN File Editor

Figure 8. Phase 3

4. Steps to Design a Network using

Vector CANoe Figure 11. FIBEX Explorer

The following were used in creating and analyzing a  Step 2: We can create necessary panels to describe the
network using Vector CANoe: node’s peripherals now. Panels in Vector CANoe are created
 Step 1: We need to create a database that describes the using the software Panel Editor. This is shown in Fig.12
entire network. below.

Figure 12. Panels in Vector CANoe

 Step 3: Now one has to create network nodes.

Figure 9. Vector CANdb++ Editor Network nodes are created in the simulation window of
Vector CANoe. This is a separate simulation window for
The database is created using the software Vector CANdb each of the network i.e. a separate window for CAN, LIN and
++ Editor for a CAN network. This software creates a .dbc FlexRay network. Figs.13 and 14 below show the creation of
file as shown in Fig. 9 below. For a LIN network the data- CAN and FlexRay networks.
base is created using the software Vector LIN File Editor.  Step 4: One writes the CAPL programs for each node.
This software creates a LIN Description File (LDF) as shown The universal applicability of CANoe results in large
below in Fig.10 and for a FlexRay Network the database is measure from its user programmability. The Communication
created using FIBEX Explorer software. This software cre- Access Programming Language CAPL is a C like pro-
ates a FIBEX file (.xml) as shown in Fig. 11 below. gramming language, which allows us to program CANoe for
 Rishvanth et al.: Design of an In-Vehicle Network (using LIN, CAN and FlexRay), Gateway and its 44
Diagnostics Using Vector CANoe

individual applications. Thus the data traffic of all remaining  Step 5: Finally one can simulate and analyze the re-
stations can be simulated with the help of CAPL. We can sults.
also write programs for problem-specific analysis of data After the hardware implementation of the networks, the
traffic with CAPL, or we can program a gateway – a con- busses are connected to Vector CANoe to view the messages
necting element between two buses – to exchange data be- being transferred on the bus and it analyzes the bus for error
tween different CAN buses. frames, bus load, etc. For connecting the CAN bus to Vector
CANoe a hardware called the CANcaseXL is used. This
hardware does not need any power supply and the channel 1
of it connects to the CAN bus as shown in Fig.16 below.

Figure 13. Network Nodes for CAN Network

Figure 16. Vector CANcase XL

Figure 14. Network nodes for FlexRay network

Figure 17. Vector VN3400 FlexRay Inter

Figure 15. CAPL Browser

Figure 18. Vector Diagnostics Window
CAPL nodes are inserted in the data flow plan as function
blocks. Event procedures serve as inputs in CAPL. These For connecting the FlexRay bus to Vector CANoe a
procedures can react to external events (e.g. the occurrence hardware called the Vector VN3400 FlexRay Interface is
of specific messages). We can send messages by calling the used. It needs an external power supply and both the chan-
function output(). These language tools and symbolic access nels of the FlexRay bus can be connected using the same
to the various variables in the database make it possible to hardware as shown in Fig.17. The Figure 18 above shows the
create simple prototypical models of nodes. The event pro- diagnostics window of Vector CANoe.
cedures can be edited in the user-friendly browser as shown All the messages being transferred on the network busses
in Fig.15 below. can be seen on the Trace window. The statistics window
45 American Journal of Signal Processing. 2011; 1(2): 40-45

shows the graph of the messages being transferred per sec- [5] B.K.Ramesh, K. Srirama Murthy, “In-vehicle networking”,
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[6] Christopher A. Lupini, “In-Vehicle Networking Technology
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS [9] Shane Tuohy, Martin Glavin,Ciarán Hughes, Edward Jones,
Liam Kilmartin, “An ns3 based Simulation Testbed for
This work forms part of the Research and Development In-Vehicle Communication Networks”,
activities of TIFAC-CORE in Automotive Infotronics lo- www.eee.nuigalway.ie/Research/car/documents/stuohy_ukp
cated at VIT University, Vellore – 632 014. The authors ew2011.pdf
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