Controller area network reliability: overview of design challenges and safety related perspectives of future transportation systems

Abstract

The in-vehicular networked control system is among the most critical embedded processes. The controller area network (CAN) has prevailed intra-vehicle communication for decades. Meanwhile, requirements of future transportation systems are expected to emphasise the in-vehicle communication complexity, which endangers the reliability/safety of the intelligent navigation. At first, this study reviews the recent solutions proposed to overcome the CAN expanding complexity. Challenges that tomorrow's intelligent vehicles may raise for CAN reliability are investigated. The comprehensive coverage of current research efforts to remove the impact of these challenges is presented. Further, the in-vehicle system reliability of future automated vehicles is also related to the fault diagnosis performances. Hence, different classes of system-level diagnosis strategies are compared relatively to the requirements of automotive embedded networks. Furthermore, to thoroughly cover CAN reliability engineering issues, focus is given to the automotive validation techniques. The hardware in the loop, real-time analysis and computer-aided-design tools intervene in various phases along the in-vehicular network life cycle. Parameters that stand behind the efficiency and accuracy of these techniques in validating the new generation of vehicles are analysed. The authors finally draw some deductive predictions about the future directions related to the reliability of the intelligent transportation system in-vehicular communication.