CAN Bus, CAN FD, LIN, J1939, And CANopen Network Analysis Tool

Posted by Industry News on Nov 3rd 2018

Warwick Control Technologies, a UK company, has released version 3.11.0 of its X-Analyzer network analysis tool. The software provides standard CAN Bus, CAN FD, and LIN all-in-one tool, along with higher-layer protocols such as SAE J1939 and CANopen.

When purchased in combination with the Kvaser Hybrid or Hybrid Pro interfaces, the product can be used with standard CAN Bus, CAN FD, and LIN using a single interface. These interface units come with two channels which can be mapped to X-Analyser software in any combination of these network protocols that the user requires, e.g. channel 1 can be LIN and channel 2 can be CAN FD.

Other added features included in this release are LIN improvements such as importing schedule table from the LDF so that the LIN schedule is automatically ready to transmit as well as the CAN FD support via any Kvaser interface that supports CAN FD. The Object Transmitter feature provides extended functionality in the form of the New Message Builder, which allows the user to set the frame data field based on CAN parameter database.

The extended CANopen feature supports a Network Management control panel for managing CANopen device NMT state. Additionally, the CAN Physical Layer Analyser via the Picoscope 2206b USB oscilloscope scans the CAN network for 10 seconds and records one example of each CAN frame. The user can click on the CAN identifier and view the CAN_H, CAN_L and differential of the entire CAN frame in an oscilloscope type view. Each CAN frame traces for CAN_H and CAN_L electrical signals.

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LIN (Local Interconnect Network) is a serial network protocol used for communication between components in vehicles. The need for a cheap serial network arose as the technologies and the facilities implemented in the car grew, while the CAN bus was too expensive to implement for every component in the car. European car manufacturers started using different serial communication topologies, which led to compatibility problems.

In the late 1990s, the LIN Consortium was founded by five automakers (BMW, Volkswagen Group, Audi Group, Volvo Cars, Mercedes-Benz), with the technologies supplied (networking and hardware expertise) from Volcano Automotive Group and Motorola. The first fully implemented version of the new LIN specification (LIN version 1.3) was published in November 2002. In September 2003, version 2.0 was introduced to expand capabilities and make provisions for additional diagnostics features. LIN may be used also over the vehicle's battery power-line with a special DC-LIN transceiver.

Our LIN Bus breakout board comes with a Microchip MCP2004A transceiver.

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