66 research outputs found
Extensible FlexRay communication controller for FPGA-based automotive systems
Modern vehicles incorporate an increasing number of distributed compute nodes, resulting in the need for faster and more reliable in-vehicle networks. Time-triggered protocols such as FlexRay have been gaining ground as the standard for high-speed reliable communications in the automotive industry, marking a shift away from the event-triggered medium access used in controller area networks (CANs). These new standards enable the higher levels of determinism and reliability demanded from next-generation safety-critical applications. Advanced applications can benefit from tight coupling of the embedded computing units with the communication interface, thereby providing functionality beyond the FlexRay standard. Such an approach is highly suited to implementation on reconfigurable architectures. This paper describes a field-programmable gate array (FPGA)-based communication controller (CC) that features configurable extensions to provide functionality that is unavailable with standard implementations or off-the-shelf devices. It is implemented and verified on a Xilinx Spartan 6 FPGA, integrated with both a logic-based hardware ECU and a fully fledged processor-based electronic control unit (ECU). Results show that the platform-centric implementation generates a highly efficient core in terms of power, performance, and resource utilization. We demonstrate that the flexible extensions help enable advanced applications that integrate features such as fault tolerance, timeliness, and security, with practical case studies. This tight integration between the controller, computational functions, and flexible extensions on the controller enables enhancements that open the door for exciting applications in future vehicles
Performance improvements of automobile communication protocols in electromagnetic interference environments
Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) is frequently encountered in automobile communication systems due to a large number of inductive nodes used in these systems. This thesis investigates the effects of EMI on two types of automobile communication systems, the Controller Area Network (CAN) and the FlexRay. It also proposes a modified Automatic Repeat reQuest (ARQ) scheme to improve the communication performances in EMI environments --Abstract, page iii
In-vehicle communication networks : a literature survey
The increasing use of electronic systems in automobiles instead of mechanical and hydraulic parts brings about advantages by decreasing their weight and cost and providing more safety and comfort. There are many electronic systems in modern automobiles like antilock braking system (ABS) and electronic brakeforce distribution (EBD), electronic stability program (ESP) and adaptive cruise control (ACC). Such systems assist the driver by providing better control, more comfort and safety. In addition, future x-by-wire applications aim to replace existing braking, steering and driving systems. The developments in automotive electronics reveal the need for dependable, efficient, high-speed and low cost in-vehicle communication. This report presents the summary of a literature survey on in-vehicle communication networks. Different in-vehicle system domains and their requirements are described and main invehicle communication networks that have been used in automobiles or are likely to be used in the near future are discussed and compared with key references
Design of in-vehicle networked control system architectures through the use of new design to cost and weight processes : innovation report
Over the last forty years, the use of electronic controls within the automotive industry
has grown considerably. In-vehicle network technologies such as the Controller Area
Network (CAN) and Local Interconnect Network (LIN) are used to connect
Electronic Control Units (ECU) together, mainly to reduce the amount of wiring that
would be required if hardwired integration were used.
Modern passenger cars contain many networks, which means that for the
architecture designer, there is an almost overwhelming number of choices on how to
design/partition the system depending on factors such as cost, weight, availability of
ECUs, safety, Electro-Magnetic Compatibility (EMC) etc. Despite the increasing role
played by in-vehicle networks in automotive electrical architectures, its design could
currently be described as a “black art”. Not only is there an almost overwhelming
number of choices facing the designer, but there is currently a lack of a quantifiable
process to aid decision making and there is a dearth of published literature available.
NetGen is a software tool used to design CAN/J1939, LIN and FlexRay
networks. For the product to remain competitive, it is desirable to have novel features
over the competition. This report describes a body of work, the aim of which was to
research in-vehicle network design processes, and to provide an improvement to such
processes. The opportunities of customer projects and availability of customer
information resulted in the scope of the research focusing on the adoption of LIN
technology and whether the adoption of it could reduce the cost and weight of the
target architecture. The research can therefore be seen to address two issues: firstly
the general problem of network designers needing to design in-vehicle network based
architectures balancing the needs of many design targets such as cost, weight etc, and
secondly the commercial motivation to find novel features for the design tool, NetGen. The outcome of the research described in this report was the development of
design processes that can be used for the selection of low cost and weight automotive
electrical architectures using coarse information, such as that which would be easily
available at the very beginning of a vehicle design programme. The key benefit of
this is that a number of candidate networked architectures can be easily assessed for
their ability to reduce cost and weight of the electrical architecture
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