CAN/CANopen Protocol

The CAN protocol is an international standard and several protocols based on this standard are available on the market. Some are standardized like CANopen and other are proprietary. COPALP provides, through their configuration tool, the ability to configure all these protocols.

Configuration tool

The CAN bus is commonly used in embedded applications. Several companies have created their own protocol over CAN or use CANopen as a standard to exchange real time data with third party components. All these solutions have the same issues: the capability of the configuration tool and the ability to manage the exchange between the solution and the CAN controller in the network.

The implementation of CAN in straton® solves these issues. In the straton® Workbench an integrated configuration tool for CAN bus protocol supports both version 2.0A (11 bit header) and 2.0B (29 bit header). Several CAN networks can be configured over various CAN controllers. The CAN configuration tool gives the possibility to configure any parameters of any CAN protocol. Proprietary CAN protocols are configured in a very convenient and simple way.

The CANopen configuration is achieved using a powerful wizard that automatically creates the required messages for a CANopen master or slave configuration. The setup of CANopen networks is done through configuration only so no specialist programming is required.

Communication stack

The straton CAN communication stack implements all features necessary to manage CAN protocols:

• Status and error reporting on any message
• Automatic conversion of values according to their data-type
• Periodic and spontaneous emissions
• Reception and filters
• Commands to manage CAN messages

The communication stack is independent from the CAN hardware and uses the same configuration files. It also ensures high portability thanks to its independence from the Operating System and the main processor and its small memory footprint. The big advantage is that the same configuration can be loaded to different hardware using different CAN controllers.

COPALP supports various CAN controllers in the implementation of the straton® runtime:

• USB to CAN converter from PEAK-System
• USB TO CAN from GRIDCONNECT
• CAN device from KVASER
• USB and board from IXXAT
• IPC components from BECK
• SODIMM ARM9 from Pragmatec
• The B2K PLC from RS Automation

The straton runtime for Windows includes a CAN bus analyzer, that provides an easy way to spy on the messages over the CAN network.

Emulation tool

A CAN/CANopen emulator is integrated in the straton Workbench. In simulation mode this tool is ideal to debug CAN based applications and tune CAN components. It allows the display of all messages and to simulate incoming messages.

More about CAN: www.can-cia.org