Setha Pan-ngum

History of CAN [1]

It was created in mid-1980s for automotive
applications by Robert Bosch.
Design goal was to make automobiles more
reliable, safer, and more fuel efficient.
The latest CAN specification is the version
2.0 made in 1991.
 Serial
Communication
Links

Sensors Nozzles
ECUs NOZZLE
ECU

Data
Logging GPS
Sensors Nozzles
ECUs NOZZLE
ECU
Data Bus

Data Bus

Data
Logging GPS
Layered Approach in CAN (1 of 3) [1]
 Only the logical link and physical layers are described.
 Data link layer is divided into two sublayers: logical link control (LLC)
and medium access control (MAC).

 LLC sublayer deals with message acceptance filtering, overload

notification, and error recovery management.
 MAC sublayer presents incoming messages to the LLC sublayer and
accepts messages to be transmitted forward by the LLC sublayer.
 MAC sublayer is responsible for message framing, arbitration,
acknowledgement, error detection, and signaling.
 MAC sublayer is supervised by the fault confinement mechanism.
Layered Approach in CAN (2 of 3) [1]
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.
Layered Approach in CAN (3 of 3) [1]

Application Layer

Supervisor
CAN LAYERS

Data Link Acceptance filtering

LLC sublayer Overload notification
Recovery management
Data encapsulation/decapsulation
Frame coding (stuffing/destuffing)
Medium access management
MAC sublayer Error detection Fault
Error signaling Confinement
Acknowledgement
Serialization/Deserialization

Physical Bit encoding/decoding

Bit timing Bus Failure
Synchronization Management
Driver/Receiver characteristics

Figure 13.1 CAN layers

General Characteristics of CAN
[1] (1 of 3)
Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision
Detection (CSMA/CD)
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.
Binary Countdown (Bit dominance) [2]
Binary Countdown [4]
General Characteristics of CAN
[1] (2 of 3)
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.
General Characteristics of CAN
[1] (3 of 3)
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.
Types of CAN Messages (1 of 2) [1]
Data frame
Remote frame
Error frame
Overload frame
Types of CAN Messages (2 of 2) [1]
Two states of CAN bus
Recessive: high or logic 1
Dominant: low or logic 0
Data Frame [1]
A data frame consists of seven fields: start-of-frame,
arbitration, control, data, CRC, ACK, and end-of-
frame.

Interframe
space or
Interframe overload
space Data Frame frame

Start of Arbitration Control Data CRC ACK End of

frame field field field field field frame

Figure 13.2 CAN Data frame

Start of Frame [1]
A single dominant bit to mark the beginning of a data
frame.
All nodes have to synchronize to the leading edge
caused by this field.
Arbitration Field [1]
 There are two formats for this field: standard format and extended format.
Interframe
space Arbitration field Control field

Start of frame 11 bit Identifier RTR IDE r0 DLC

(a) standard format

Arbitration field Control field

Start of
frame 11-bit identifier SRR IDE 18-bit identifier RTR r0 r1 DLC

(b) extended format

Figure 13.3 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 [1]
Contents are shown in figure 13.4.
The first bit is IDE bit for the standard format but is
used as reserved bit r1 in extended format.
r0 is reserved bit.
DLC3…DLC0 stands for data length and can be from
0000 (0) to 1000 (8).
Arbitration Control Field Data field
field or CRC field

IDE/r1 r0 DLC3 DLC2 DLC1 DLC0

reserved bits Data length code

Figure 13.4 Control field

Data Field [1]
May contain 0 to 8 bytes of data
CRC Field [1]
It contains the 16-bit CRC sequence and a CRC
delimiter.
The CRC delimiter is a single recessive bit.

Data or
Control field CRC field ACK

CRC sequence CRC delimiter

Figure 13.5 CRC field

ACK Field [1]
Consists of two bits
The first bit is the acknowledgement bit.
This bit is set to recessive by the transmitter, but will be
reset to dominant if a receiver acknowledges the data
frame.
The second bit is the ACK delimiter and is recessive.
Remote Frame [1]
Used by a node to request other nodes to send certain
type of messages
Has six fields as shown in Figure 13.7
These fields are identical to those of a data frame with
the exception that the RTR bit in the arbitration field is
recessive in the remote frame.
Interframe
space or
Interframe overload
Remote frame
space frame

Start of arbitration Control CRC ACK End of

frame field field field field frame

Figure 13.7 Remote frame

Error Frame [1]
 This frame consists of two fields.
 The first field is given by the superposition of error flags contributed from
different nodes.
 The second field is the error delimiter.
 Error flag can be either active-error flag or passive-error flag.
 Active error flag consists of six consecutive dominant bits.
 Passive error flag consists of six consecutive recessive bits.
 The error delimiter consists of eight recessive bits.

Interframe space
Data or
frame Error frame Overload frame

error flag error delimiter

Superposition of
error flags

Figure 13.8 Error frame

Overload Frame [1]
 Consists of two bit fields: overload flag and overload delimiter
 Three different overload conditions lead to the transmission of the
overload frame:
 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.
 Format of the overload frame is shown in Figure 13.9.
 The overload flag consists of six dominant bits.
 The overload delimiter consists of eight recessive bits.
End of frame or Interframe space
Error demiliter or or
Overload Overload frame Overload frame
delimiter
Overload flag Overload delimiter

Superposition of
overload flags
Figure 13.9 Overload frame
Interframe Space (1 of 2) [1]
 Data frames and remote frames are separated from preceding frames
by the interframe space.
 Overload frames and error frames are not preceded by an interframe
space.
 The formats for interframe space is shown in Figure 13.10 and 13.11.

Frame Interframe space Frame

Intermission bus idle

Figure 13.10 Interframe space for non error-passive nodes or receiver of

previous message

Frame Interframe space Frame

Suspend
Intermission Bus Idle
Transmission

Figure 13.11 Interframe space for error-passive nodes

Interframe Space (2 of 2) [1]
The intermission subfield consists of three recessive
bits.
During intermission no node is allowed to start
transmission of the data frame or remote frame.
The period of bus idle may be of arbitrary length.
After an error-passive node has transmitted a frame,
it sends eight recessive bits following intermission,
before starting to transmit a new message or
recognizing the bus as idle.
Message Filtering [1]
A node uses filter (s) to decide whether to work on a
specific message.
Message filtering is applied to the whole identifier.
A node can optionally implement mask registers that
specify which bits in the identifier are examined with
the filter.
If mask registers are implemented, every bit of the
mask registers must be programmable.
Bit Stream Encoding [1]
 The frame segments including start-of-frame, arbitration field, control
field, data field, and CRC sequence are encoded by bit stuffing.
 Whenever a transmitter detects five consecutive bits of identical value
in the bit stream to be transmitted, it inserts a complementary bit in
the actual transmitted bit stream.
 The remaining bit fields of the data frame or remote frame (CRC
delimiter, ACK field and end of frame) are of fixed form and not
stuffed.
 The error frame and overload frame are also of fixed form and are not
encoded by the method of bit stuffing.
 The bit stream in a message is encoded using the non-return-to-zero
(NRZ) method.
 In the non-return-to-zero encoding method, a bit is either recessive or
dominant.
Errors (1 of 3) [1]
Error handling
 CAN recognizes five types of errors.

Bit error
 A node that is sending a bit on the bus also monitors the bus.
 When the bit value monitored is different from the bit value being
sent, the node interprets the situation as an error.
 There are two exceptions to this rule:
 A node that sends a recessive bit during the stuffed bit-stream of the
arbitration field or during the ACK slot detects a dominant bit.
 A transmitter that sends a passive-error flag detects a dominant bit.
Errors (2 of 3) [1]
Stuff error
Six consecutive dominant or six consecutive recessive
levels occurs in a message field.
CRC error
CRC sequence in the transmitted message consists of
the result of the CRC calculation by the transmitter.
The receiver recalculates the CRC sequence using the
same method but resulted in a different value. This
is detected as a CRC error.
Errors (3 of 3) [1]
Form error
 Detected when a fixed-form bit field contains one or more illegal
bits
Acknowledgement error
 Detected whenever the transmitter does not monitor a dominant
bit in the ACK slot
Error Signaling
 A node that detects an error condition and signals the error by
transmitting an error flag
 An error-active node will transmit an active-error flag.
 An error-passive node will transmit a passive-error flag.
Fault Confinement [1]
 A node may be in one of the three states: error-active, error-passive, and bus-
off.
 A CAN node uses an error counter to control the transition among these three
states.
 CAN protocol uses 12 rules to control the increment and decrement of the
error counter.
 When the error count is less than 128, a node is in error-active state.
 When the error count equals or exceeds 128 but not higher 255, the node is in
error-passive state.
 When the error count equals or exceeds 256, the node is in bus off state.
 An error-active node will transmit an active-error frame when detecting an
error.
 An error-passive node will transmit a passive-error frame when detecting an
error.
 A bus-off node is not allowed to take part in bus communication.
From [2]
From [2]
CAN Benefits and Drawbacks [2]
References and slide sources
1. Huang Han-Way, The HCS12/9S12: An introduction
2. Koopman P, Controller Area Network (CAN) slides
3. Stone M, Controller Area Networks lecture slides, Oklahoma State
University
4. Upender B, Koopman P, Communication protocols for embedded
systems, Embedded systems programming, Nov 1994.