Conformance Test of Automotive CAN BUS Transceiver: Empirical Research of Industry Case

Abstract

Controller area network (CAN) BUS is one of the most popular BUSes among road vehicles. Basically, it is used to achieve reliable communication between ECUs in the car due to its simple, practical and reliable features. It is also widely used in industrial automation, marine, medical and other fields. The reliability and safety of the CAN BUS is highly importance to the development of autonomous vehicles. In general, the test specification of a CAN BUS system was developed by semiconductor manufacturers based on the carmaker's requirements. The complementary test cases defined in the standards ISO11898-2:2016 and ISO 16845-2 are for evaluating the performance in the CAN physical layer and data link layer signals. Conformance testing ensures the correct interoperation of CAN transceivers in complex CAN networks that use devices from different suppliers. This test performs within the reference environment using predefined settings to ensure at the maximum, high level of repeatability and comparability of the test results. A data-sheet check procedure according to ISO 16845-2 as a static test plan can complement the interoperability test. Every elementary test is composed of three states such as setup state, test state and verification state. We present our test plan on a specific CAN controller which is developed by a collaborated automotive IC design house. Practical experience will be shared based on the experiment results.