EPN Automotive Electronics Blog

CAN and LIN out of the palm

In vehicle assembly or the manufacture of mechatronic assemblies and systems it is often the case that operating functions must be executed at units to be mounted in vehicles without availability of related ECUs and control elements. This is the moment for a handheld terminal supporting those bus systems.

IAA 2011: An extra eye on the road

One of the hottest among the hot topics at IAA 2011 - Internationale Automobil-Ausstellung - in Frankfurt is safety. Safety for driver and passengers but also for pedestrians and all the other traffic on the road.

The three-bus board

Among the most critical points in automotive electronics are intersections of different bus systems. Those areas need to be designed and tested thoroughly – and it’s a bonus when the development device can be used in all stages, even in production.

Approved CAN bus coupler

In order to ensure reliable operation of motor vehicles on the road, German law requires a motor vehicle type approval (Allgemeine Betriebs-Erlaubnis, ABE) – also referred to as »e1« approval – for all components that are connected to the vehicle's electrical system. This is required even for the most unspectacular components.

Model truck

Inefficient driving techniques can increase carbon emissions and raise fuel consumption by as much as 10%. For a company with 20 trucks, each driven 120,000 kilometres a year, this translates to 200 tons

Extensible prototyping

While automotive electronics makes driving much more comfortable, »electronified« modern cars also have shorter lifetime and design time than »oldtimers«. So, the new car with the heatable cigarette lighter won’t last for 20+ years like but we won’t have to wait 10 years for the successor. Development tools need to develop even faster…

TriCore on the road

We’ve all heard about the 60, 80 or 100 microcontrollers in todays or tomorrows cars, controlling ignition timing, displaying virtualized tachometers or illuminating the front-seat passenger’s ashtray. Since the assigned functions are so varied, those automobiles usually are a very diverse ecosystem for many different MCU families from a large number of different manufacturers.

CAN node à la carte

It may look like a mixture of an old-fashioned beeper and some gadget for taxi drivers and is none of those. The CAN bus remote controller »neoVI-MOTE«, developed by Intrepid Control Systems and distributed by Hitex Development Tools, is supposed to make working with the  CAN bus  easier.

A tiny controller in a big car

More electronics, increasingly complex software: Modern cars are embedded systems on wheels. While communication between ECUs (Electronic control units) and other on-board systems has become more or less standardized with bus systems like CAN, LIN and sometimes already MOST and Flexray , there are still many proprietary communication solutions in the powertrain area.

Measuring LIN

While LIN is the PHY- and protocol-wise the simplest of the currently used bus systems in cars, more often than not analysing systems know more about CAN , Flexray or even MOST than about the uncomplicated two-wire connection.