Comparison of the Temporal Performance of Physical and Virtual CAN Networks

Abstract

The automotive industry is a the verve to deploy computer systems not only for safety-related and comfort functionality, but for safety-critical by-wire systems. Time-triggered networks not only provide the communi- cation infrastructure for these safety-critical application subsystems, but also permit event-triggered CAN commu- nication via virtual CAN networks. Thus, there is the possibility to eliminate physical CAN networks, which leads to cost reductions and reliability improvements. However, a prerequisite for the replacement of physical CAN networks through virtual CAN networks is the ability to provide the temporal performance (e.g., communication latencies, bandwidth) required by existing CAN-based ap- plication software. This paper provides experimental results that demonstrate that virtual CAN networks can not only support the temporal performance of legacy applications, but go beyond the limitations of its physical counterpart by offering bandwidths above 1 Mbps and less latency jitter. We perform measurements of the temporal performance of physical and virtual CAN networks with a framework that comprises an implementation of virtual CAN networks in the Time-Triggered Architecture and a Matlab/Simulink- based simulation of a physical CAN network. In order to compare the temporal performance, we use message sets provided by the automotive industry as inputs to both the simulation of physical CAN and the implementation of a virtual CAN network. I. INTRODUCTION