Kumar S.

Golla
4/10/2010
What is CAN?
Controller Area Network
A serial communication protocol
Originally developed for automotive industry but is used
in other industries
Is a multi-master broadcast “bus”
Each node can transmit and receive, not simultaneously
Uses differential signaling
The signal pattern is encoded in NRZ
Excellent error handling and fault confinement
Bit rate 1 Mbps (< 40m) 125 Kbps (~500m)
Where is CAN used?
Modern dashboards
Before CAN
Modern cars
Automotive networks
Automotive networks (contd…)
Automotive Protocol Comparison
LIN CAN FlexRay MOST
20 Kbps max. 1 Mbps max. 10 Mbps max./ch 23 Mbps max.
Single Multiple master TDMA Multiple master
master/multiple
slave
Door Locks, Body Systems, Drive-by-Wire, Media
Climate Control, Engine Brake-by-Wire,
Seat Belts, Management, Advanced Safety
Sunroof, Lighting, Transmission and Collision
Window Lift, Avoidance
Mirror Control Systems, Steer-by-
Wire, Stability
Control, Camera-
Based Monitoring
Systems
CAN History
Started in 1986
By Robert Bosch for
Mercedes
Defined for only logical link
and physical layer
Data link layer divided into
logical link layer and media
access control
ISO 11898 (High Speed)
ISO 11519 (Low Speed)
J1939 – Trucks & Busses
CAN Layers
CAN Layers
 LLC sub-layer deals with message acceptance filtering, overload
notification, and error recovery management.
 MAC sub-layer presents incoming messages to the LLC sub-layer and
accepts messages to be transmitted forward by the LLC sub-layer.
 MAC sub-layer is responsible for message framing, arbitration,
acknowledgement, error detection, and signaling.
 MAC sub-layer is supervised by the fault confinement mechanism.

 The physical layer defines how signals are actually transmitted, dealing
with the description of bit timing, bit encoding, and synchronization.
 CAN bus driver/receiver characteristics and the wiring and connectors are
not specified in the CAN protocol.
 System designer can choose from several different media to transmit the
CAN signals
CAN Characteristics
Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision
Detection (CSMA/CD) + AMP
Every node on the network must monitor the bus
(carrier sense) for a period of no activity before trying
to send a message on the bus.
Once the bus is idle, every node has equal opportunity
to transmit a message.
If two nodes happen to transmit simultaneously, a
nondestructive arbitration method is used to decide
which node wins.
CAN Characteristics
Message-Based Communication
 Each message contains an identifier.
 Identifiers allow messages to arbitrate and also allow each node to
decide whether to work on the incoming message.
 The lower the value of the identifier, the higher the priority of the
identifier.
 Each node uses one or more filters to compare the incoming
messages to decide whether to take actions on the message.
 CAN protocol allows a node to request data transmission from
other nodes.
 There is no need to reconfigure the system when a new node joins
the system.
CAN Characteristics
Error Detection and Fault Confinement
The CAN protocol requires each node to monitor the
CAN bus to find out if the bus value and the
transmitted bit value are identical.
The CRC checksum is used to perform error checking
for each message.
The CAN protocol requires the physical layer to use bit
stuffing to avoid long sequence of identical bit value.
Defective nodes are switched off from the CAN bus.
Bit Stuffing
CAN uses NRZ encoding
To guarantee edges
Insert opposite bit after 5 consecutive bits
Eliminates clock drift
Bit Stuffing
CAN Messages
Data Frame
Remote Frame
Error Frame
Overload Frame

Two states of CAN bus

Recessive: high or logic 1
Dominant: low or logic 0
CAN Data Frame
Data Frame Bits
 SOF = Start Of Frame = one dominant bit
 SRR = Substitute Remote Request = one bit (recessive), so Standard
Frame gets priority
 IDE = Identifier Extension Bit = Standard Frame (dominant),
Extended Frame (recessive)
 RTR = Remote Transmission Request = one bit (recessive)
 R1, R2 = Reserved Bits
 DLC = Data Length Code = 4 bits (rxxx = 8 bytes) (code length 9-15
not allowed)
 CRC = Cyclic Redundancy Check = 15 bit with 1 bit recessive CRC
delimiter
 ACK = Acknowledgement = Ack slot and delimiter = transmitter sends
2 recessive bits
 EOF = End Of Frame = 7 recessive bits
 IFS = Inter Frame Space
Arbitration
ID
Remote Frame

Used by nodes to request messages of certain type

Error Detection
Bit Error
Transmitted bit not same as received
Exception: Arbitration Field and Acknowledgement Field
Bit-Stuff Error
Receiver reads more than 5 bits of same polarity
Exception: EOF
CRC Error
Format or Form Error
Ex: CRC delimiter not recessive, EOF violation
Acknowledgement Error
Error Handling

Active error flag – 6 dominant bits

Passive error flag – 6 recessive bits
Error delimiter – 8 recessive bits
All nodes that received the last frame – discard it
Transmitter re-sends the frame automatically
Error Confinement
 Xmitter finds error REC <127
and error active
 TEC = TEC + 8 TEC <=127
'reset' or 'init
 Receiver finds error REC >127 or
node'

127<TEC<255
 REC = REC + 1
 Receiver finds error after
transmitting a error frame error passive
bus off

 REC = REC + 8
TEC > 255

 Error active node finds stuff

error in error frame
 TEC = TEC + 1
 Success Receive Error Counter (REC)
 TEC = TEC - 1 ; REC = REC - 1
Transmit Error Counter (TEC)
Overload Frame

Three conditions cause overload

 Internal conditions of a receiver require a delay of the next data
frame or remote frame.
 At least one node detects a dominant bit during intermission.
 A CAN node samples a dominant bit at the eighth bit (i.e., the last
bit) of an error delimiter or overload delimiter.
Flag – 6 dominant bits Delimiter – 8 recessive bits
Interframe Space
Data & Remote frames separated by IFS
Error & Overload frames not preceded by IFS

IFS for error-active or receive node

IFS for error-passive node

Interframe Space
Intermission space is 3 recessive bits
No node can transmit during Intermission space
Bus Idle length is arbitrary
Suspend transmission is 8 recessive bits
CAN Message Bit Timing
CAN Nominal Bit Time
SYNCSEG
sjw
sjw
tseg1 tseg2

TQ

Transmit Point Sample Point

 TQ = SYNCSEG
CAN Spec Says
 tseg1  tseg2
 Tseg1 = PROP_SEG +
 3/BRP ≤ tseg1 ≤ 16 TQ
PHASE_SEG1  3/BRP ≤ tseg2 ≤ 8 TQ
 Tseg2 = PHASE_SEG2  1 TQ ≤ sjw ≤ MIN[ 4*TQ , tseg2]
 TQ = (BRP + 1) / SYSCLK  BRP  5 ( if three sample mode is used)
CAN Bit Timing Example
 Bit Configuration for SYSCLK = 150 MHz
 Sample Point at 80% of Bit Time :
CAN-Baudrate BRP TSEG1 TSEG2

1 MBPS 9 10 2

500 KBPS 19 10 2

250 KBPS 39 10 2

125 KBPS 79 10 2

100 KBPS 99 10 2

50 KBPS 199 10 2

 Example 50 KBPS:
TQ = (199+1)/150 MHz = 1.334 ns
tseg1 = 1.334 ns ( 10 + 1) = 14.674 ns  tCAN = 20.010 ns
tseg2 = 1.334 ns ( 2 + 1) = 4.002 ns
Message Filtering
Used to decide which message to use
Filtering applied to whole message ID
Can use optional mask registers to decide which bits
to look at in the message ID
If using mask registers, all bits should be
programmable
Types of CAN
BASIC-CAN
 Close loop between MCU-core and CAN
 Only one transmit buffer
 Only two receive buffers
 Only one filter for incoming messages
 Software required to select between messages

FULL-CAN
 Message server
 Extensive acceptance filtering
 User-configurable mailboxes
 Mailbox memory/size configurable
 Advanced error recognition
Types of CAN
CAL
CAN-Open
MicroCAN Open
CANiA
CAN-Open IA
DeviceNet
CAN Kingdom
SDS
J1939
Advantages
Capable of providing real-time communication
Error correction and confinement useful in noise-
critical environments
Uses lossless, bit-wise arbitration
Provides high speeds at low cost
Used for control, not data movement
Suitable for small networks
Protocol design to increase integrity of the system
Disadvantages
Electrical properties set physical limits in
combination with transmission speed
Same with branch lines
Must be terminated with load resistors
Cable end not correctly terminated can make the
whole bus inoperable
Node starvation is possible
CAN Bus Waveform
Typical CAN Implementation
Kumar S. Golla
9866005323
Backup
Masking Example
 CAN Standard Frame
2.0A – Max. Frame Length 127 bits with stuffing
Arbitration Field Control Field Data Field

12 bits 6 bits 0 to 64 bits

S R I ACK
Identifier r DLC CRC EOF
O T D Data Field Field
11bits 0 4bits 15bits 7bits
F R E 2bits

No Bit
Bit Stuffing
Stuffing
SOF = Start Of Frame= one dominant bit
RTR = Remote Transmission Request = Data Frame (dominant), Remote Frame (recessive)
IDE = Identifier Extension Bit = Standard Frame (dominant), Extended Frame (recessive)
DLC = Data Length Code = 4 bits (rxxx = 8 bytes) (code length 9-15 not allowed)
R0 = reserve bit = transmitted as dominant
CRC = Cyclic Redundancy Check = 15 bit with 1 bit recessive CRC delimiter
ACK = Acknowledgement = Ack slot and delimiter = xmitter sends 2 recessive bits
EOF = End Of Frame = 7 recessive bits
Error Counters
 CAN Extended Frame
2.0B : Max. frame length 150 bits with stuffing
Arbitration Field Control Field Data Field

32 bits 6 bits 0 to 64 bits

S ACK
Identifier Identifier Ext. DLC CRC EOF
O SRR IDE RTR r1 r2 Data Field Field
F 11bits 18bits 4bits 15bits 7bits
2bits

No Bit
Bit Stuffing
Stuffing

SOF = Start Of Frame = one dominant bit

SRR = Substitute Remote Request = one bit (recessive), so Standard Frame gets priority
IDE = Identifier Extension Bit = Standard Frame (dominant), Extended Frame (recessive)
RTR = Remote Transmission Request = one bit (recessive)
R1, R2 = Reserved Bits
DLC = Data Length Code = 4 bits (rxxx = 8 bytes) (code length 9-15 not allowed)
CRC = Cyclic Redundancy Check = 15 bit with 1 bit recessive CRC delimiter
ACK = Acknowledgement = Ack slot and delimiter = xmitter sends 2 recessive bits
EOF = End Of Frame = 7 recessive bits
CRC
15 bit with generator polynomial x15 + x14 + x10 + x8 + x7 +
x4 + x 3 + 1
1 bit CRC delimiter (always) recessive
Only error detection, no correction
Hamming distance 6
 Detect up to six bit errors
Arbitration Field

 The identifier of the standard format corresponds to the base ID in the

extended format.
 The RTR bit is the remote transmission request and must be 0 in a
data frame.
 The SRR bit is the substitute remote request and is recessive.
 The IDE field indicates whether the identifier is extended and should
be recessive in the extended format.
 The extended format also contains the 18-bit extended identifier.
Control Field