The History of Standardization and CAN in a Nutshell

The history of standardization and CAN in a nutshell

Standards might be boring to read, but a military background: The we couldn’t do without them. Without German industry wanted to standards we would be back optimize production during on the Tower of Babel, World War I (1914 to 1918), watching the city around which was mainly a material us burn, because we didn’t battle between Germany and norm the fire hydrants. France. There are also civil ex- amples of standardization benefits. In 1904, a fire broke out in Baltimore. To combat the flames, reinforcements from New York, Philadelphia and Washington (DC) came to Baltimore. After they ar- rived, they realized that their fire hoses could not be con- nected to the fire hydrants. Lesson learnt, the U.S. started a lot of standardization projects. In 1904, the ANSI he CAN protocol has that different implementa- Confederate rail network was (American National Stan- been internationally tions can exchange mes- mostly in the broad gauge for- dards Institute) was estab- Tstandardized since 1993 sages. This is the same mat, only North Carolina and lished. A few years earlier, in the ISO 11898 standard. with human languages: If we Virginia had mainly standard the British Standardization These days, all basic CAN didn’t agree on paper and gauge lines. Southern rail- Institute (BSI) had been standards are under review. envelope formats as well as roads west of the Mississippi founded. The ISO 11898-1 standard is character sets, we couldn’t differed widely in gauge and An increase in interna- going to be upgraded and to communicate through mail. were isolated and discon- tional business demanded include the CAN FD protocol There would be no normed nected. During the Civil War, worldwide standardization. extension. The ISO 11898-2 keyboards and no letters the Union government rec- This was the birth of the IEC high-speed transceiver stan- that could be read without an ognized the military and eco- (International Electrotechni- dard and its younger sis- interpreter. nomic advantages of having cal Commission): The inau- ters ISO 11898-5 (low-pow- a standardized track gauge. gural meeting was as early er mode) as well as ISO Standardization The government worked with as 1906. Originally located 11898-6 (selective wake- the railroads to promote use in London (UK), the com- up transceivers) are going Standardization is as old of the most common rail- mission moved to its cur- to be merged into one sin- as interactions within larg- road gauge in the U.S. at the rent headquarters in Geneva gle ISO document, to make er human communities. The time, which measured 4 feet (CH) in 1948. One year be- them consistent and easier first Chinese emperor, Qin and 8 ½ inches, a track size fore, 25 countries founded to maintain. Shi Huang (260 to 210 BC), that originated in England. the ISO (International Stan- We all know that stan- standardized not just the Chi- This gauge was mandated dardization Organization) to dards are boring to read, nese characters, but also the for use in the Transcontinen- deal with all “non-electrical” but we can’t work without system of units and mea- tal Railroad in 1864 and by standards. The ISO prede- them. It’s especially dull to surements as well as the cur- 1886 had become the U.S. cessor had already been es- read standards that were not rency and the width of cart standard. tablished in 1926, but it was made for your needs. For ex- axles. Another example for suspended during World War ample, the ISO 11898 series War has often driven standardization during wars II. Today the division of labor is written for chipmakers who standardization. More than is standardized rifle parts. is more or less history, be- want to implement the CAN 2500 years ago Heraclitus Standardized parts are inter- cause electrical equipment is protocol. Users should not stated: “War is the father and changeable between guns. used in many industries and read them. A better way to king of all.” In the American This was a revolutionary idea needs to be standardized. Editorial spend your time would be to Civil War (1861 to 1865), one by Thomas Jefferson and Eli ISO standardizes electronics buy one of the helpful books of the reasons for the victo- Whitney (mechanical engi- too, in particular for those in- on the topic or to search for ry of the Union against the neer) in the late 18th century. dustries that have non-elec- articles and basic informa- South was the standard- Likewise the founda- trical roots. That is why CAN tion on the Internet. ization of their rail tracks. tion of the predecessor of is standardized by the auto- We do need a shared The problem was the differ- the DIN (German standard- motive technical committees way of communication, so ence of track gauges: The ization body) in 1917 had of ISO: cars were originally

CAN Newsletter 2/2014 3 Editorial

Figure 1: The war is the father of all things – the first Chinese emperor standardized among others the width of axles (left) and the Union government standardized rail tracks (right) (Photos: Wikipedia)

not defined as electric and CAN high-speed transmis- by truckers. They don’t like to link sensors and meters to the electronics. sion. In 1995, the ISO 11898 be watched electronically. subsea control unit. These ISO is a voluntary or- standard was extended by Just after the year 2000, CAN applications make use ganization whose members an addendum describing the Bosch started to extend the of the CANopen application are recognized authorities on extended frame format us- CAN protocol by a time-trig- layer and the related CiA standards, each one repre- ing the 29-bit CAN identifier. gered protocol. It is an unan- 443 CANopen profile for SIIS senting one country. Mem- Ten years after the publica- swered question if this is a level-2 devices. bers meet annually at a Gen- tion of ISO 11898, the doc- session layer or if it doesn’t In the IEC organization, eral Assembly to discuss ument was split into parts: fit in the OSI reference mod- there are also some CAN-re- ISO's strategic objectives. The first part contained the el at all. But it was standard- lated standards. First of all The Central Secretariat co- data link layer and the phys- ized in ISO 11898-4 and is the IEC 61375-3-3 standard ordinates the standardiza- ical signaling, while part two known as TTCAN. Up to now has to be mentioned: It de- tion activities and publishes standardized high-speed it has not made its way into scribes the CANopen-spe- the ISO standards. There are transmission. Fault-tolerant, the industry. Some chipmak- cific implementation of CAN over 250 technical commit- low-power transmission went ers have implemented it, but networks within rail vehi- tees and thousands of sub- into ISO 11898-3. At the it is not in use. The same cles; locomotives as well as committees, working groups, same time, ISO started the happened to the ISO 15745- coaches. This includes some and task forces. standardization of CAN- 2-2 standard describing an physical layer specifications The IEC has a similar based truck-trailer communi- XML-based framework for and some functions originally number of technical works. cation. The results are spec- CAN-based networks, which specified in CiA 301 and CiA Some 10 000 electrical and ified in the ISO 11992 series, has never been used in in- 302. Another IEC standard, electronics experts from in- which includes its on phys- dustrial automation systems. IEC 61800-7-201/301, spec- dustry, government, aca- ical transmission solution I was personally involved ifies the CiA 402 CANopen demia, test labs, and others and a higher-layer protocol in its development, but un- profile for drives and motion with an interest in the sub- based on J1939. This series derstood little of what the controllers. ject develop the standards. also specifies dedicated pa- IT experts were discussing. Of course there are also IEC standards have numbers rameter groups (signals as- This is one of the standards two European Cenelec stan- in the range from 60000 to sembled to CAN messag- that are just paperwork and dards related to CANopen: 79999. The IEC is made up es). All this standards are eating memory space on EN 50325-4 specifies the of members, called national published under the roof computers. They are not re- CANopen application layer committees (NC). Each NC of the Technical Commit- ally ecologically valuable, and EN 50325-5 describes represents its nation's elec- tee (TC) 22. Within this TC especially when consider- the CANopen Safety proto- tro-technical interests. there is also the ISO trans- ing the traveling. Anyway, col extension. Cenelec and port protocol standardized standardization can some- CEN, the European stan- CAN-related stan- (ISO 15765-2), which is the times be slow and eat a lot of dardization bodies, were dards in ISO and IEC base for several emission- work-time. established in 1973 respec- related CAN-based diagnos- ISO TC 23 is the home tively in 1961. Today, they The CAN protocol was first tic standards (ISO 15765-4). of the ISO 11783 series (also work in close cooperation described in a specification The ISO 14229-3 standard known as Isobus), which with IEC and ISO, in order published by Bosch. Many specifies unified diagnostic standardizes the communi- to avoid double standardiza- people still use the terms services (UDS) transmitted cation between tractor and tion. Or in other words: the try CAN 2.0A and CAN 2.0B via CAN. Another CAN-relat- agriculture equipment (so- not to re-invent the wheel. from back then. However, ed series is ISO 16844 stan- called implements). This in 1993 the ISO 11898 standardizing tachograph com- standard is based on the dard was released, substitut- munication for commercial J1939 higher-layer protocol. No standards without ing all predecessors includ- vehicles. This standard is The ISO 13628-6 standard sponsors and editors ing the Bosch specification. referenced by European reg- describes the general re- The ISO standard comprised ulations, but not much loved quirements for subsea equip- To put it bluntly, all standard- the CAN data link layer and in the industry, especially not ment using CAN networks to ization activities are driv-

4 CAN Newsletter 2/2014 en by interests of individuals Standardization or companies – sometimes is slow both. Bosch backs the cur- rent activities regarding the The process of standardiza- ISO 11898 series. The C&S tion is sometimes slow com- Group performing the related pared to the development Wi-Fi CAN BRIDGE conformance testing of CAN of technology. Because of silicon supports all confor- this, technology is often in- mance test plans. Of course, troduced first and standard- the market-leading semicon- ized later. Standardization ductor manufacturers and is slow, because all par- some carmakers spend a ties should have the chance lot of effort on pursuing CAN to comment on the provid- standardization. ed drafts and proposals. On The editor of ISO 11898- the other hand, the slow pro- 1 is Florian Hartwich from cess avoids standardizing Bosch. During the develop- technology that disappears ment of the document there again soon. In the beginning, were many contributions I found it harrowing to wait. In from different experts, in par- the meantime, I have learned ticular from GM, Mercedes, to be more relaxed and pa- and Renesas. The related tient. For example, when we CAN conformance test plan, started to standardize the standardized in ISO 16845- CAN FD protocol, only Bosch 1, was edited and some by Andreas All standardization other ex- Meidrodt activities are driven perts actual- from the ly developed C&S Groups. by interests of the protocol. A college of individuals But while we him, Chris- were prepar- toph Wosnit- or companies. ing the com- za, does the mittee draft paperwork for ISO 16845-2, for voting, we received a lot the conformance test plan for of valuable ideas and com- ISO 11898-6 (selective wake- ments from other experts. up CAN transceivers). Bernd In the end, this improved the Elend from NXP volunteers CAN FD protocol and will in- as editor of the harmonized crease its acceptance in the high-speed transceiver stan- industry. Of course, the standard (ISO 11898-2). With- dardization process should out these editors, who also not be so slow that the doc- spend some of their free time ument is never published. on editing the documents, Therefore, ISO and IEC es- the standards would not tablish project deadlines that PROMOTES meet the deadlines given by have to be met. MOBILITY the rules of ISO. Still, it is boring to read Every ISO or IEC group standards. In particular, if needs a convener and a sec- you are not familiar with the retary. The secretary is nor- specific standardization lan- mally a representative of guage. But we need these Supports connectivity Wi-Fi 802.11b/g, a national standardization formal rules on how to write to any Wi-Fi device WPA2-PSK encryption body. Volunteers for conve- standards: we need a stan- ners are always welcome, dard that tells us how to create Can act as a wireless Supports CAN 2.0A because this position is un- standards. One of the rea- access point or wire- and 2.0B with bus paid. But sometimes, there sons for the need is to avoid less client speeds up to 1Mbit/s are political discussions and misunderstandings and mis- arguments about who gets interpretations when translat- which position, because no ing the standard into different Designed for use in Built in HTTP server country or company should languages than the two of- vehicles and mobile with customizable dominate in a group. Tradi- ficial ones: English and machines web pages tionally, Germany is strongly French. represented in automotive- related committees. Stan- Possible applications: monitoring, program updates, dardization does not only parameter settings, data logging etc. have a technical dimension; it also has a political one. www.electrumab.se Innovation partner

Electrum Automation AB, Industrivägen 8, 901 30 Umeå, +46 (0)90-18 45 50

Solutions for Open Networks from one Source

Open CAN-based protocols are the basis of networking in commercial vehicles, avionics and industrial control technology. Vector supports you in all development phases of these systems:

> Systematic network design with CANoe, ProCANopen and CANeds > Successful implementation with source code for CANopen, J1939 and more > Efficient configuration, test and extensive analysis with ProCANopen, CANoe and CANalyzer Multifaceted trainings and individual consulting complete our extensive offerings.

Thanks to the close interlocking of the Vector tools and the competent support, you will increase the efficiency of your entire development process from design to testing.

Further information, application notes and demos: www.vector.com/opennetworks

Vector Informatik GmbH Germany • USA • Japan • France • UK • Sweden • China • Korea • India

CAN-based_Protocols_Solutions_EN_2013.indd 1 23.04.2013 12:45:36