Embedded Systems Academy

With about 900 exhibitors the Embedded World reached a size where it is impossible to “see it all”. Yes, you can still walk by all booths in a day, but you might easily miss hidden highlights. It was quite obvious that IoT – the Internet of Things – is a current hype. To me this is quite astonishing as already some 10+ years ago we built an “Embedded Internet Demo” – at that time based on a Philips 8051 with a dial-up modem connected. The main difference between now and then is that now smart phones are widely spread and we are “always online” and now can access our embedded devices “at any time”. Among the visitors one could recognize a lot of skepticism for what exactly we really need the IoT, other then it being hip and cool to be able to control “everything” with our smart phone.

An unusual approach to get remote access to embedded applications was shown by Raisonance (http://www.iotize.com) – they have a miniature NFC or Bluetooth module that connect to the JTAG/SWD debug port of an application. So it can be added to any application with debug port, sometimes even without the need to re-compile the code, if you have the knowledge where in memory the variables are that you want to have remote access to. A great tool to get started with IoT without requiring a re-design of existing hardware.

At the CiA (CAN in Automation) booth a CAN FD demo integrated devices and tools from multiple vendors. CAN FD (Flexible Data) allows higher bit rates and longer contents (up to 64 bytes) of the data frame. Especially bootloader applications and other software update features benefit from the higher data throughput. For such applications it seems to be possible to increase the effective data throughout 8 fold easily, potentially even more.

We at ESAcademy further enhanced our portfolio of CANopen Diag products. There is now a second hardware, based on PEAK’s mini Display, that offers a subset of the diagnostic features provided at a price point of well below 1000 Euro. The CANopen Test Machine System part of the CANopen Diag now allows to create tests based on MS Visio graphs. The transitions in a state diagram can be used to transmit or receive a CAN/CANopen message or to influence/set/test/query variables or timers. More details and examples will be published shortly.

This year the Embedded World (www.embedded-world.de) in Nuremberg expects 30k+ vistors from 35+ countries. Show days are from 24th to 26th of February. For companies “into CAN” one of the hot topics is CAN FD – more and more products (microcontrollers as well as interfaces) are now available supporting the new standard supporting higher data rates. You can see the Bosch CAN FD demonstrator at the CiA booth (booth 608 in hall 1). This demo includes our CANopen Magic software connected to a CAN FD bus using the latest PEAK CAN interface. If you have questions and would like to meet us, come over to our partner PEAK System (booth 606, hall 1, just next to the CiA booth). Looking forward to seeing you!

On March 5th, ESAcademy will conduct the following classes at the iCC together with NXP Semiconductors:

08:30 to 09:30 Everything CAN and NXP CAN Controller Intro
A 30 year old technology, here to stay for another 30 years

An overview of the almost 30 year old CAN technology, where it came from and where it goes. CAN is used in many new electronic designs, also thanks to continuous advancements in CAN controller technology. Comparison of various CAN controller technologies.

09:45 to 10:30 CANopen Essence
New to CANopen? Learn the key features in just 45 Minutes

With its 4000+ pages the CANopen drafts and standards are overwhelming to newcomers. Join this class to get an overview of the common technical key features that make CANopen work.

11:30 to 13:00  Introduction to NXP CAN microcontrollers and Co-Processors
CAN controllers, CANopen Co-Processor, J1939 Co-Processor

Specialties of NXP CAN controllers and how an LPC11C24 can be used as a communication Co-Processor. Using the LPC11C24 with integrated CAN transceivers to implement a Co-Processor to implement and handle a higher-layer protocol, offloading this task from a host processor system. The host system communicates with the gateway via
UART, I2C or SPI.

Participants may qualify for a free NXP Evaluation Kit (must be present to qualify, 50 kits available).

For more information about the international CAN conference visit: www.can-cia.org

For many years the maximum bit rate of CAN (Controller Area Network) has been 1Mbps. Not only was it a maximum for the bit rate, it also resulted in a “touchy” physical layout: cable length restrictions were as low as 30m.

The limits of speed vs. cable length comes from the requirement, that in CAN a bit needs to be stable on the entire bus, before the next bit may start. Some bits can be over-written, a feature which is used for arbitration, acknowledgments and error handling.

Bosch, the inventor of CAN, now introduced a white paper “CAN with Flexible Data-Rate” showing how a higher data rate can be achieved. The main suggested feature here is to allow switching between a low (backward compatible) bit rate and a much higher bit rate within a single message.

In short, a single CAN message consist of control data at the beginning and the end of a message with the data field “in the middle”. The core idea is to use the lower bit rate for the control data and the higher bit rate for the data field only. In addition the maximum data field size is increased from previously 8 bytes to now 64 bytes.

If the higher bit rate is 8 times higher than that of the base rate it would be possible to achieve an 8 times higher data-throughput WITHOUT changing the real-time behavior.

For more info, see the white paper at:
www.semiconductors.bosch.de/media/pdf/canliteratur/can_fd.pdf