Articles...

Extending the reach of your CAN application
 

One of the ingenious features of CAN, the bit monitoring, contributes not only to the enormous reliability of Controller Area Network, but it is ironically also responsible for its biggest drawback, the limited physical distance of the CAN bus. Restricted physical distance is definitely an issue especially for applications such as elevators, security systems and other building technologies. The one and only way to extend the usable bus length without compromising the reliability is to lower the baud rate. In cases where reliability is not the main focus, e.g. diagnostics and low priority messaging, a CAN bus can be extended as far as the reach of the Internet.

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Data Sheets:
CAN Repeater
CAN Bridge
CAN Ethernet Gateway
   
CAN Remote Frames on Recall
 

Experience over the years has uncovered some oddities in the CAN protocol - which are naturally not covered by any official document - and one of them has lead to the call to avoid CAN remote frames. In August of 2005 CAN-in-Automation (CiA) released (but not promoted) their application note 802 - "CAN remote frame - Avoiding of usage".

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CAN or Ethernet – A Design Aspect
 

When it comes to the design of a system with distributed intelligence, i.e. a networked multi-processor system, the first question that a design engineer faces is the choice of an appropriate networking technology that best meets the design specific requirements. CAN (Controller Area Network) and Ethernet are both very popular choices, especially when a certain level of vendor-independence, i.e. the avoidance of manufacturer-specific technologies, is an important aspect.

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Selection Criteria for CAN Higher Layer Protocols
  Even though extremely effective in automobiles and small applications, CAN alone is not suitable for machine automation, since its communication between devices is limited to only 8 bytes. As a consequence, higher layer protocols such as CANopen for machine control, DeviceNet for factory automation and J1939 for vehicles were designed to provide a real networking technology that supports messages of unlimited length and allow a master/slave configuration.

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CANopen Device Profiles
  The ultimate goal of CANopen is to provide OEMs and end users a certain level of manufacturer independence by providing standard device profiles for a continuously increasing number of controls. This paper will provide an overview of the CANopen specification (DS-301, DSP-302) and will explore in more detail the device profiles for generic I/O modules (DS-401), drives and motion control (DSP-402), and IEC 61131-3 programmable devices (DS-405).

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