No. 2 - January 26, 2024

A word from the CiA Managing Director

Regulation (EU) 2023/1230 of the European Parliament and of the Council of June 14, 2023 on machinery replaces Directive 2006/42/EC on machinery. The regulation – as did the 2006 directive – defines the mandatory essential health and safety requirements that machinery products must fulfil to be placed on the European market, as well as the procedures for assessing their conformity, while the technical details are mainly provided through European harmonized standards elaborated by European standards organizations. This has some impacts on existing CAN-based functional safety protocols, e.g. CANopen Safety standardized in EN 50325-5. There are also functional safety solutions for J1939-based networks: J1939-76 specifies a solution for CAN CC (classic) and J1939-77 relates to CAN FD.

On January 30, CiA is going to establish a new SIG (Special Interest Group) for functional safety under the umbrella of the IG (Interest Group) safety and security. It is intended to review and update the EN 50325-5 (standard) and to develop a functional safety protocol, which fits to all three CAN data link layer protocols (CAN CC, CAN FD, and CAN XL).

The solutions to be developed need to comply with some basic functional safety standards, e.g. IEC 61805 and IEC 61511. Functional safety for road vehicles is standardized in ISO 26262; it is not referenced by the EU-Directive 2023/1230, because road vehicles are not machines covered by the EU machine directive. However, trucks and other commercial vehicles can be equipped with body applications (e.g. vehicle-mounted cranes), which need to meet the EU machine directive. Usually, the in-vehicle networks communicate via a gateway to the body application network. Both can be based on CAN. This communication via the gateway is partly safety-related. This means, the gateway has to comply on one side with ISO 26262 and on the other side with the EU machine directive. Unfortunately, there is no standardized solution available yet. This leads to manufacturer-specific solutions and decreases the interoperability between vehicles and body applications.

The CiA SIG functional safety should address all these topics, in order to provide a standardized solution for machine builders. This includes also those machines mounted on road vehicles. The EU machine directive excludes medical devices, elevators, and some other application-specific machines. The excluded application fields develop their own functional safety specifications. It would be helpful, if the CiA solution for functional safety could cover these applications, too. Besides the technical challenges, there are also political topics to be considered.

Interested parties can contact CiA office to participate in the SIG functional safety for machines or to get more detailed information on the inaugural SIG meeting.

 

Usage of SI units and non-SI units

The International System of Units, also known by the abbreviation SI (Système International), represents the metric system. CiA recommends not to transmit data assigned with non-SI units. This complies with ISO and IEC rules, too. If there is a need to sense data or to display data assigned with non-SI units, it schould be locally transformed to data assigned with SI units. This makes products independent of national legislation and directives. Additionally, the off-the-shelf interoperability is increased. For legacy purposes, there are some exceptions possible. Nevertheless, new CiA technical documents should specifiy only SI units. On the CAN network, you should not use data with assigned non-SI units. The CiA 890 technical report (Presentation of SI units and prefixes) provides recommendations how to represent SI units and prefixes in parameter specifications. It recommends also the structure of configuration parameters for SI units and prefixes. It can be downloaded free of charge.

CiA membership statistics
Business category Dec 2023 (768)* Jun 2023 (743)* Dec 2022 (751)* Jun 2022 (726)*
Device supplier 484 474 468 460
Sub-system manufacturer 174 175 192 197
Service supplier 109 106 106 103
Technology enabler 99 101 95 96
System manufacturer (OEM) 78 75 75 75
Tool supplier 43 43 42 43
Research 19 19 21 21
Software solution provider 17 17 20 20
End-user 3 3 3 3
* Multiple answers (number of members) 2023-12-31

End of 2023, CiA had 768 members. One year before, CiA counted 751 members. About 50 % of the members are located in German-speaking countries (Austria, Germany, and Switzerland) followed by 10 % situated in North America, and another 10 % based in North Europe. Exactly 484 members provide devices, 174 are subsystem suppliers, and 99 members are technology enablers offering semiconductors, interface modules, or protocol stacks. Circa 110 members are development service suppliers and 43 members sell CAN-related tools. Some companies support multiple product and service categories.

About 450 members offer CANopen-related devices. The member statistics with some more detailed information will be soon available for download on the new CiA website.

Final call for experts: SIG truck gateway

The SIG truck gateway develops the CiA 413 series, which specify CANopen gateways to J1939-based in-vehicle networks (IVN) of commercial vehicles. Last year, several documents standardizing the IVN communication of commercial vehicles (e.g. ISO 11992-X series and DIN 4630) have been updated. Thus, some CiA 413 parts should be updated as well. After retirement of the former chairperson, there are no actively-working participants with the required expertise in the group. To continue the work, at least three experts from different companies should work in the SIG.

Thus, CiA is looking for experts with the according know-how. Please indicate your interest to work in the group via email to secretary(at)can-cia.org. If no sufficient feedback will be received by 2024-02-16, the SIG truck gateway will be closed and the CiA 413 series will be frozen.

Final call for experts: SIG rail vehicles

The dormant SIG rail vehicles is responsible for CiA 421, CiA 423, CiA 424, CiA 426, CiA 430, and CiA 433 specification series. Deutsche Bahn has indicated interest to review the CiA profile for HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning), but no progress has been achieved.

Please indicate, if you have comments or update requests for the mentioned documents via email to secretary(at)can-cia.org. If no feedback will be received by 2024-02-16, the SIG rail vehicles will be closed.

CiA website is under re-construction

In the next days, CiA is going to migrate its website to a new format supporting smartphones and tablets. This is done in several steps. CiA starts with the homepage and some other general top-level pages as well as the CiA group related pages including the CiA document downloads. The knowledge base and other special-purpose pages follow in the next steps. The CiA event registration will be updated, too. The iCC-related pages are already suitable for handheld devices.

When you detect failures, find invalid links, or miss some information, you are kindly asked to report this to CiA office.

International CAN Conference (iCC) 2024

This year, the iCC takes place in Baden-Baden, Germany. Registration is open. The early-bird rate is valid by April 13, 2024. The two-days conference is accompanied by a tabletop exhibition. The event sponsored by esd electronics and Vector is scheduled on May 14 and 15. The program covers topics related to all three CAN generations: CAN CC (classic), CAN FD, and CAN XL with a special focus on the CAN XL ecosystem.

CAN and CANopen online seminars in February

CiA organizes two web-based seminars in English language on February 27 and 28 (13:00 to 17:00, UTC+1). Introductions into physical layer, data link layer, and higher-layer protocols for CAN CC (classic) and CAN FD as well as future of CAN are given on day 1. On day 2, the lower layers, device architecture, protocols, and profiles for CANopen CC (classic) and CANopen FD are presented. The seminar gives also an insight into the CANopen future.

The registration possibility is available online: Day 1 and Day 2. It is also possible to register via an email to events(at)can-cia.org.

CAN Newsletter magazine

The December 2023 issue contains the article “Using ChatGPT to analyze large CAN data sets” by CSS Electronics. As an example, a data set from a Kia EV6 electric car is used, which has been recorded by means of a data logger. The data consists of UDS (Unified Diagnostic Services) messages and GPS/IMU sensor information. The article describes, how to prepare the CAN data and provides 12 example show cases. It shows the resulting output from ChatGPT.

Advertisements

CiA activities

New CiA members since January 01, 2024

  • Benning Elektrotechnik und Elektronik (DE)
  • JK Energy (GB)
  • Joral (US)
  • Lorch Schweißtechnik (DE)
  • Matrix Elektronik (CH)
  • Shenzhen ACE Battery (CN)
  • SIKA (DE)
  • Unisemi Power (CN)

CiA has 737 members (January 26, 2024)

CiA Product Guides

New entries

  • CAN: Sontheim Industrie Elektronik
  • CANopen: PEAK-System Technik

Follow us on social media

Editors: Olga Fischer, Holger Zeltwanger (responsible according to the press law)
Advertising: Birgit Ruedel (responsible according to the press law)

© CAN in Automation (CiA) e. V.
Kontumazgarten 3
DE-90429 Nuremberg
Tel.: +49-911-928819-0
Fax +49-911-928819-79
headquarters(at)can-cia.org
www.can-cia.org