CAN Info Mail

This monthly email is for all CAN fellows.
March 2020

A word from the CiA Managing Director

Cybersecurity is a big topic in the automotive industry. We need to protect our vehicles against viruses. But we also have to face the novel coronavirus, also known as Covid-19 virus. It challenges us: The epidemic in China is now spread to other regions. Supply chains for electronic products are affected including CAN-based devices. Business might slow down in the near future.

In China, the New Year holidays have been prolonged. Some Chinese CiA members try to overcome the travel restrictions by means of webinars and by increasing social media activities.

Several CiA members have cancelled their participation in the Embedded World tradeshow in Nuremberg, because of the Covid-19 virus. Also the number of exhibition visitors was significantly lower than in the years before.

But we should not panic, although the WHO (World Health Organization) said that the Covid-19 virus has a pandemic potential. Officially, WHO has not declared a pandemic. But even, if this happens, we should find solutions to continue our business as much as we can, without risking our health.

We are monitoring carefully the national and international health advises by German governmental authorities and WHO.

In the last days with incidences in Italy and even Germany, the novel virus has arrived at the doorstep of Europe. Therefore we are at high alert. We at CiA are living up our responsibility towards our members, customers, and employees. First of all we are evaluating, which on-site meetings are really necessary. In case on-site meetings are required, we do everything to make them as safe as possible.

We observe daily the general advices of the German Ministry of Health and follow them. Up to now, all CiA events and meetings in Germany take place, as scheduled. This includes the international CAN conference, too. Nevertheless, we might postpone or cancel the conference, if the situation is getting worse. The safety and health of all of us has the highest importance for CiA.

The entire CiA team wishes you: Stay healthy!

 

CAN Newsletter Online

  • The CAN Newsletter Online has reported in several articles about the Embedded World tradeshow. CiA focused on the availability of CAN FD building blocks such as protocol controller, transceivers, and CANopen FD protocol stacks.

Additional articles:

CAN Newsletter magazine

The March 2020 issue includes an article about designing CAN FD networks with SIC transceivers. These transceivers are capable to suppress ringing.

Current issue
Download the full magazine

Review of CiA 402-6

The SIG drives and motion control discussed to improve the CANopen FD PDO mapping as specified in CiA 402-6. The current PDO mapping specifications do not cover all use cases. Some of the pre-defined 64-byte PDOs are declared as manufacturer-specific. It is intended to specify them, because they have not been implemented yet. If somebody has already used them, please raise your hand and send an email to secretary(at)can-cia.org.

LEDs and CAN

In road vehicles increasingly LEDs are used for adaptive headlights and other lighting applications. Texas Instruments proposed in an application note to use CAN transceivers a physical layer for a UART connection linking an MCU to its multi-channel LED matrix controllers. Another proposal is to use for complex LED matrixes a simplified CAN FD implementation similar to the SLIO concept in the early days of Classical CAN. This is a master/slave approach avoiding some costly time synchronization features of CAN. Of course, it could be used for other price-sensitive applications. CiA is preparing a call for experts to discuss this.

Annual TMC event by ATA

In February, the annual Technical & Maintenance Council of the America Trucking Association took place in Atlanta, Georgia. On the five-day event the ATA task forces and study groups reported and discussed the future of trucking. This included also sessions on electronics. Especially, the in-trailer networking and the communication between truck and trailer were important topics. Besides Ethernet, CAN FD and CAN XL are candidates for some tasks. For automated driving and e-trucks CAN technologies could also be used. Cooperation between several standardization bodies seems to be necessary. CiA is ready. Interested parties may contact the CiA office.

Join the 17th iCC!

The international CAN Conference takes place in Baden-Baden (Germany). There are still some seats available. The two-days conference starts on March 17. For more information and registration please visit: iCC 2020.

Seminars and webinars

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1 in German language (all others in English language)

If you need CAN-related trainings, please consider requesting an in-house seminar with a customized agenda. For further information please write to events(at)can-cia.org.

New CiA member since the last CiA Info Mail (CIM)

CiA has 677 members (March 03, 2020).

CiA Product Guides

Renewed entries

 

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© CAN in Automation (CiA) e. V.
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