Model checking of in-vehicle networking systems with CAN and FlexRay

Abstract

An in-vehicle networking (IVN) system consists of electronic components that are connected by buses and communicate through multiple protocols according to their requirements. In practice, intelligent vehicles need to exchange data between subsystems that use various protocols, such as the controller area network (CAN) and FlexRay. Such systems are more likely to encounter delays and message loss during transmission, presenting serious safety issues. Moreover, IVN systems are extremely complicated because of their large number of nodes, multiple communication protocols, and diverse topologies. As a result, it is difficult to check the timed properties of the system directly and accurately. In this paper, we present an appropriate abstraction for modeling IVN systems that utilize CAN and FlexRay during the design phase. The timed properties of communication are analyzed using the UPPAAL platform. As there are numerous IVN system structures, a framework is developed to build a model for an IVN system design. The model is to verify the transmission of messages between different protocols. We evaluate the validity, applicability, and reusability of the framework and show the performance of the framework for verifying IVN system models.