What is the CAN bus and how is it used in the vehicle?

10.04.2019

There are often several dozen control units in modern cars. Many of them have to communicate with each other. You can find out what this has to do with the so-called CAN bus in today’s article.

The end of the cable crisis thanks to CAN

The acronym CAN stands for Controller Area Network and refers to a serial bus system, i.e. a system in which data is transmitted between several participants via a common path. The maximum transmission speed for the (high-speed) CAN bus is 1 Mbit/s, but it also depends on parameters such as the cable length and bus load.

The purpose of the system, developed by Bosch in 1983, is to reduce the number of wiring harnesses in vehicles - as these were previously up to 2 kilometers long.

The CAN bus in the vehicle

As cars produce more and more data, the focus is increasingly on electronics. To ensure that the electronic devices in vehicles can work together without problems, they need a standardized communication or platform. This is ensured by the CAN bus.

The electronic devices include sensors and control units. There can be up to 50 of the latter in modern luxury cars. Each of these is connected to the bus via a CAN interface and checks the data for content and priority. If several control units attempt to send information at the same time, the message with the highest priority is sent first and the others follow in descending order of priority. Thanks to so-called "identifiers", the information is then processed by the correct device.

Advantages of using the CAN bus:

  • Less cabling required
  • More economical and simpler realization of cross-controller communication, for example with ESP
  • Clear detection of faults and interruptions thanks to high transmission reliability

Mini PCs in the vehicle

Our range of mini PCs also includes several models that are designed for a wide variety of in-vehicle applications. These include the MOVE series and the RUGGED series, which recently welcomed a new mini PC - the RUGGED Ryzen. All models can be optionally equipped with a CAN bus module to meet the scenario described above.

We have summarized more about vehicle PCs, what distinguishes them and where they can be used in another article.

Click here for our vehicle PCs

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