Embedded Systems Academy

The popular CANopen Analysis software CANopen Magic and CANopen Logxaminer by Embedded Systems Academy have received a major update. The latest enhancement is a charting module that draws process data plots over time. In CANopen Magic, the data is captured from a live CANopen system whereas in CANopen Logxaminer it is done in post-analysis from a trace recording.

The process data charts are updated dynamically with each corresponding PDO, SDO or USDO on the network. A broad selection of triggering, filtering, scaling and measurement options allow to fine-tune the charts to the task at hand. Configurable colours and shading for each data source complete the customization options.

CANopen Magic generates process data information automatically from the EDS (Electronic Datasheet Files) files of the CANopen nodes connected to the network, making setting up charts from process data easy.

In summary, the added charting module significantly improves the build-in data analysis capabilities of CANopen Magic and CANopen Logxaminer. The charting module is now available in the CANopen Magic Professional and Ultimate editions. Get your trial here: Try CANopen Magic!

At today’s 15th international CAN conference Olaf Pfeiffer of Embedded Systems Academy presented a paper about testing of highly dynamic CANopen systems. Such systems support plug-and-play and node ID assignment by LSS (Layer Setting Services, node ID gets assigned through the network). As a result, devices may change their node ID, making tests more challenging.

One of the test utilities introduced in this paper is now available as free download from ESAcademy’s web pages. It supports the extended concise DCF (Device Configuration File) as introduced in the paper. It allows you to easily write down configuration or test sequences in a table (save as .csv) and execute them using the free CANopen File Player.

The file format, the concise Default Configuration File is part of the basic CANopen definitions and has been in use for quite some time. The extension to it is simply a definition of a set of commands introducing the option to control things like addressing specific devices (identify by CANopen Identity record 1018h) and time delays / timeouts or user interactions.

In addition, the utility can re-play previously made CAN trace recordings, supporting a wide variety of formats from Vector, PEAK and others.

For more information on the format of the extended CDCF see the manual or download the free utility.

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.