The CANopen SIG application layer is already updating and improving the CiA 301 specification in order to make use of the CAN FD lower layers. CAN FD provides not just higher throughput, but also data frames with a length up to 64 byte. The CANopen FD specification under development supports PDOs with a length of up to 64 byte. The PDO mapping parameters will provide 64 pointers, so that a byte-wise mapping is possible, bit-wise mapping is not recommended.

In the “open” meeting for drives and motion control (January 20, 10:00 a.m. in Nuremberg, Germany), possible use cases of longer PDOs will be discussed. One idea for CANopen drives could be to map multiple control-words for one axis into a single PDO. Another option would be to transmit several control-words to drives hosted in one or different CANopen nodes (multi-axes control). Other topics such as new configuration parameters and operating modes may be discussed, as well.

The “open” meeting for modular I/Os (January 21, 10:00 a.m. in Nuremberg, Germany) will also discuss different opportunities to make use of the longer PDOs. One option is to improve the current default PDO mapping for I/O modules with analog and digital I/Os. Special PDO mappings for dedicated I/O functionality may be discussed, too (e.g. for joysticks, for keypads, etc.).

The additional different PDO mappings should be indicated in the object dictionary, preferably in the device type parameter (Index 1000h). It is also intended to update the configuration parameters and if requested also the process data. Other CANopen device profiles will be reviewed regarding an improved PDO mapping (up to 64 byte) on request of CiA members and non-members.