CAN - Controller Area Network

Le Thanh Phuc
Faculty of Automotive Engineering
Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology and Education
Email: thanhphucckd@gmail.com
Introduction
• In 1991 the CAN bus (Controller Area Network) was the first bus
system to be introduced to a motor vehicle in mass production.
• It has since established itself as the standard system in the
automotive sector, but the CAN bus is also commonly used as a field
bus in automation engineering in general.
• The CAN bus is used in various domains in the motor vehicle.

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High-speed CAN (CAN-C)
CAN-C is defined in ISO Standard 11898-2
and operates at bit rates of 125 kBit/s to 1
MBit/s.
• Engine-management system (Motronic
for gasoline engines or EDC for diesel
engines)
• Electronic transmission control
• Vehicle stabilization systems (e.g. ESP)
• Instrument cluster

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Low-speed CAN (CAN-B)
CAN-B is defined in ISO Standard 11898-3
and operates at a bit rate of 5 to 125 kBit/s.
• Control of the air-conditioning system
• Seat adjustment
• Power-window unit
• Sliding-sunroof control
• Mirror adjuster
• Lighting system
• Control of the navigation system

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 Network nodes

A network node comprises the

microcontroller for the application
software, the CAN controller and the
CAN transceiver (bus driver).

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 Network nodes
• The CAN controller is responsible for
the transmit and receive modes.
• It generates the bit stream for data
communication from the binary data to
be transmitted and forwards it to the
transceiver on the TxD line.
• This amplifies the signals, generates the
voltage level required for differential
data transfer and transmits the processed
bit stream serially on the bus line
(CAN_H and CAN_L).

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 Network nodes
Incoming messages are processed by the
transceiver and sent to the CAN controller
on the RxD line.

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Logic bus states and coding
• CAN uses two states for communication, dominant and recessive, with
which the information bits are transmitted.
• The dominant state represents a binary “0”, the recessive a binary “1”.
• When it receives messages, the CAN transceiver converts the signal
level back to logical states.
• In the process, a differential amplifier subtracts the CAN_L level from
the CAN_H level.
• If lines become twisted, disturbance pulses (e.g. from the ignition
system) have the same effect on both lines.

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Logic bus states and coding

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Voltage level
• In the recessive state, the
high-speed CAN uses a
voltage of 2.5 V on both lines.
• In the dominant state, a
voltage of 3.5 V is present on
CAN_H and a voltage of 1.5 V
is present on CAN_L.

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Reflection-free termination
• Reflections of the electrical
signals at open ends of lines
would interfere with
communication.
• To dampen these
reflections, the bus lines
are terminated at each end
with a resistor of 120 Ω.

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CAN Bus protocol

1. Start of frame – Contains a dominant bit, which is used to synchronize all units
on the bus.
2. Arbitration field – Contains a message identifier
3. Control field – Contains information on how big the message’s data field is.

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CAN Bus protocol

4. Data field – Contains the actual information that is being transmitted. Can range
from 0 to 64 bits (with 8 bit increments).
5. CRC field – Contains information that allows the receiver to determine if an
error has occurred in the transmission
6. ACK field – Contains a gap in the message where the receiving units can send a
dominant bit if they have detected an error in transmission.
7. End of frame – Contains seven recessive bits, this effectively works as gap
before the next message.
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Start of frame, bit time and synchronization
• The start of frame bit serves as an opportunity for all units on the
network to synchronize their internal clocks.
• In a CAN network one bit is sent every “bit time”.
• By having all the units synchronized and having their clocks running
the same speed, all units know when a bit is sent and can thus read
it.
• The bit time depends on what speed the bus is running at (usually
125 kbit/s, 512 kbit/s or 1 Mbit/s).

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Message ID
• The message ID is sent in the beginning of the message and consists
of 11 or 29 bits with the most significant bit first.
• The message that has the smallest message ID will have the highest
priority

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Data field
• The actual “useful” data that is being transmitted in a message is
contained in the data field.
• The length can be anywhere from 0 bits to 64 bits.

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Diagnosis connector

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References
• BOSCH, Automotive Mechatronics : Automotive Networking,
Driving Stability Systems, Electronics, Spring er, 2015.
• Henning Olsson, Vehicle data acquisition using CAN, OptimumG

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