A Comprehensible Guide to Controller Area Network [Paperback]

Wilfried Voss (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 2005

A Comprehensible Guide to Controller Area Network by Wilfried Voss represents the most thoroughly researched and most complete work on CAN available in the marketplace. Controller Area Network (CAN) is a serial network technology that was originally designed for the automotive industry, especially for European cars, but has also become a popular bus in industrial automation as well as other applications. The CAN bus is primarily used in embedded systems, and as its name implies, is a network technology that provides fast communication among microcontrollers up to real-time requirements, eliminating the need for the much more expensive and complex technology of a Dual-Ported RAM. This book provides complete information on all CAN features and aspects combined with a high level of readability. The author, Wilfred Voss, is the President of esd electronics, Inc., a company that specializes in CAN technology. The company is located in Greenfield, Massachusetts. Mr. Voss has worked in the CAN industry since 1997 and before that was a specialist in the paper industry. He has a master's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Wuppertal in Germany. Mr. Voss has conducted numerous seminars on CAN and CANopen during various Real Time Embedded And Computing Conferences (RTECC) and ISA (Instrumentation, Systems, and Automation Society) events all over the United States and Canada.

Product Details

• Paperback: 164 pages
• Publisher: Copperhill Media Corporation; 1ST edition (August 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0976511606
• ISBN-13: 978-0976511601
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 7.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #289,979 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Wilfried F. Voss was born and raised in Germany, but for the past twenty years his home and his heart have been in beautiful New England. He shares his birthday with celebrities like THE KING (Elvis Presley) and David Bowie, which is January 8 (not the same year, though). His background is in Electrical Engineering and his special skills allowed him to travel all over the world, until he found his home here in the United States. He is married to an Irish-American green-eyed red-head, Susan Marie Voss, and on May 27th, 2007 he was blessed with the birth of his son, Patrick.
Mr. Voss has published three technical books on industrial electronics. As of late he is in pursuit of another genre of writing, namely fiction writing. He has published his first novel "The Bleeding Hills" in September of 2009.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good, but needs a wee bit more editing, October 25, 2008

By 

S. C. Talbot - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Comprehensible Guide to Controller Area Network (Paperback)

I've had the chance to read about 1/3 of this book. It does a good job of explaining message CAN "frames", which could be said to be roughly analogous to TCP/IP datagram packets, except at a lower level of abstraction. It gives scenarios for the 4 different types of frames, explaining the use of each field in the frame for each scenario. It describes the interaction of transmitting and receiving nodes and the CAN bus. It describes the standard frame size (11 bit message id) and the extended frame size (29 bit message id) used in J1939. It begins with CAN history, applications, and where CAN fits in to the ISO/OSI 7 Layer Reference Model.

The book covers ISO-11898-1(data link and physical signaling) and ISO-11898-2(high-speed medium access unit). ISO-11898-3 (low speed, fault tolerant, medium dependent interface) and ISO-11898-4 (time-triggered communication) are not covered.

The use of "Notes" or captions to re-iterate information is effective. However, I noticed that the author chooses to repeat information too often. Its easy to overlook this, for as the author states, some of the original works that this book uses as reference material suffer from poor translations, while this book is indeed highly readable.

Also, although this book may not be the place for it, I would have liked to have seen more discussion about how CANOpen is used for automotive purposes, and perhaps some reference to FlexRay and LIN, which are often used alongside CAN in the automotive domain, in the "Higher Layer Protocols" section.

Also, for anyone that is interested in reading an alternate document to this one, Texas Instruments has a pdf file called "Introduction to the Controller Area Network (CAN)". You should be able to search for it on their website. Also, National Instruments has a decent introduction/overview in a webpage titled "Controller Area Network (CAN) Overview" which you should also be able to find via a search on their website.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I kept this book handy while was developing custom f/w and CAN analyzer engineering s/w, August 27, 2008

By 

Nikolay Baklanov "pages hunter" (Sugar Land, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Comprehensible Guide to Controller Area Network (Paperback)

The book is so well structured and narrative that even a newbie to CAN may learn essentials in a few days. Tough themes like bit timing and synchronization are introduced clearly with smart illustrations. The author is not trying to blow out pages with unnecessary details but rather selects content very carefully and builds a self-consistent guide based on (his) evident conscious experience. The guide's index is rather lean but covers all the main features I found useful for myself when was coding fw/sw CAN suite.

This small book gives intermediate-level description for low-level side of bus communication. For high-level CAN stuff see another rather good book, the "Embedded networking with CAN and CANopen" by O. Pfeiffer et al.

With the knowledge you get from the guide you most likely will not be able to create your own chip from the scratch ;-)... but definitely can develop your custom low-level s/w or f/w driver, as well as interpret waveforms on your scope with a greater confidence.

Here is the table of contents of the guide:

1. Overview
2. Main characteristics
2.1 Frames
2.2 Multi-master bus access
2.3 Message broadcasting
2.4 Message priority
2.5 Short messages
2.6 Data rate and message frequency
2.7 Bus arbitration
2.8 Error detection and fault confinement
3. Benefits of using CAN
3.1 CAN controller firmware
3.2 Low cost implementation
3.3 Speed, reliability, error-resistance
3.4 Worldwide acceptance
3.5 Higher layer protocols
4. Message frame architecture
4.1 Dominant and recessive bus levels
4.2 Data and remote frames
4.3 Data frame
4.4 Remote frame
4.5 Message frame format
4.6 Extended CAN protocol
4.7 Error frame
4.8 Overload frame
4.9 Interframe space
4.10 Frame length and transmission times
4.11 Baud rate considerations
4.12 Bandwidth
5. Message broadcasting
5.1 Message broadcasting with data frames
5.2 Message broadcasting with remote frames
6. Bus arbitration
6.1 Principles
6.2 Main rules
6.3 Example
7. Data transfer synchronization
7.1 Bit coding
7.2 Bit stuffing
7.3 Bit timing and synchronization
7.3.1 Bit sample point
7.3.2 Bit time
7.3.3 Bit time programming
7.3.4 Synchronization
7.3.5 Phase error and resynchronization
7.3.6 Oscillator frequency tolerance range
8. Error detection and fault confinement
8.1 Error detection
8.1.1 Bit monitoring
8.1.2 Checksum check
8.1.3 Bit stuffing error
8.1.4 Frame check error
8.1.5 Ack error
8.2 Error signaling
8.3 Fault confinement
8.3.1 Error counting
9. Physical layer
9.1 Bus topology
9.2 Bus medium
9.3 Bus signal level
9.4 Bus connection
9.5 Max bus length
9.6 Wiring and connectors
10. Summary
Appendix A - References
Index

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must-Have to learn the basics of Controller Area Network, July 31, 2007

By 

Sandpiper (Cambridge, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Comprehensible Guide to Controller Area Network (Paperback)

This book is highly recommended for everybody who needs to learn the basics of Controller Area Network. I have been collecting all written works on CAN through the years, but this book is by far the best reference to the CAN technology. The writing is clear and precise. I was impressed by the details, especially when it comes to the more complex topics such as bit timing, phase error, and resynchronization. Adding to the value of this book are the many pictures, which are appropriately placed according to the complexity of the current topic (something that is painfully missing in the official ISO specification). The author is also not shy to point out to discrepancies between ISO 11898 and the official Bosch specification. It is also refreshing to see that the book does not include product specific information as seen in other works (basically advertisement that you as the reader pay for). If you are in the CAN business (or CANopen, DeviceNet, J1939, etc.) you should have this book.