This application claims priorities of Nos. 112138625 and 112140069 respectively filed in Taiwan R.O.C. on Oct. 6, 2023 and Oct. 19, 2023 under 35 USC 119, the entire contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference.
This disclosure relates to a communication system, and more particularly to a hybrid wired communication system combining a controller area network (hereinafter referred to as CAN) and other high speed communication technologies.
CAN is one of the most widely used communication system, but the bandwidth that CAN BUS can support is very limited. The insufficient bandwidth results in the condition of the lack of effective interconnection or interoperability between subsystems (or nodes) in the communication system. Although the maximum data rate of controller area network flexible data-rate (hereinafter referred to as CAN FD) protocol can be up to 8 Mbps, it is still a primary limitation for the development of communication system in electric vehicles. Once a higher bandwidth is required, the reliability of communication will be an issue.
In the CAN protocol, it is important for the communication system to determine the number of subsystems (e.g., sensors, controllers or other apparatuses) that are able to be connected to each interface. Moreover, to accommodate more subsystems, more CAN BUS interfaces need to be added to the gateway, but this also increases the risk of data re-transmission due to higher bandwidth usage. Consequently, when the bandwidth is insufficient and the bandwidth easily becomes fully utilized, the flexibility of expanding subsystems within the communication system will be limited. Furthermore, to manage the bandwidth of each interface on the gateway effectively, the wiring in the car becomes more complex, requiring more connection cables and apparatuses, which makes the overall system more intricate and difficult to manage.
This disclosure provides a wired communication system that integrates CAN with other high-speed communication systems, such as an orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM), a quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) or a serializer/deserializer (SerDes), as a solution to the aforementioned issues. This solution utilizes two-wire systems like twisted pairs, power lines, or coaxial lines as transmission media, enabling simultaneous transmission and reception of messages for both CAN (or CAN FD) and other high-speed communication technologies. This approach retains the advantages of the CAN BUS for the in-vehicle communication while increasing the transmission rate. Taking the Homeplug AV2 as an example, its transmission rate can reach approximately 1 Gbps. Designing a suitable OFDM system with similar bandwidth and integrating it with the CAN/CAN FD for the in-vehicle communication could significantly simplify the in-vehicle communication architecture and reduce the usage of the in-vehicle wiring harness, thereby lowering costs and improving reliability.
Please note that the communication medium of the wired communication system 100 consists of two wires. In this embodiment, the wired communication system 100 is disposed on the same CAN BUS. However, this embodiment can also be applied to twisted pairs, power lines, coaxial lines or combinations thereof. The wired communication system 100 includes the high-speed communication unit 1 and the high-speed communication unit 2, that are compatible with the CAN protocol. Each of the high-speed communication unit 1 and the high-speed communication unit 2 includes a specialized first CAN transceiver 10 and a high-speed signal transceiver 20. The high-speed signal transceiver 20 can transmit and receive high-speed signals, and a control signal connection is present between the high-speed signal transceiver 20 and the CAN transceiver 10. Alternatively, the high-speed signal transceiver 20 is connected to the CAN transceiver 10 through a microcontroller unit (MCU). Collaborative operations may be performed between the high-speed signal transceiver 20 and the first CAN transceiver 10. In this embodiment, each of the high-speed communication unit 1 and the high-speed communication unit 2 includes a first CAN controller 11 and MCU, which is coupled to the first CAN transceiver 10 and the high-speed signal transceiver 20 to perform control. The first CAN controller 11 and MCU can modulate digital signals for the first CAN transceiver 10 to output signals complying with the CAN protocol, and can also demodulate the digital signals transmitted from the first CAN transceiver 10.
The specialized first CAN transceiver 10 modulates and transmits, or receives and demodulates at least one CAN protocol signal. The high-speed signal transceiver 20 utilizes neither a CAN protocol nor a CAN FD protocol. The high-speed signal transceiver 20 and the first CAN transceiver 10 are directly connected or coupled to the same CAN BUS. The physical (PHY) layer data rate thereof for transmitting and receiving the high-speed signals is higher than 50 Mbit/sec. The first CAN transceiver 10 and the high-speed signal transceiver 20 operate collaboratively. The first CAN transceiver 10 does not transmit dominant signals when the wired communication system is transmitting high-speed signals, thus preventing interference with the high-speed signals. In other words, the high-speed signal transceiver 20 can transmit signals only after a predetermined time period has elapsed since dominant signaling ceased (only after the first CAN transceiver 10 stops transmitting the dominant signals for the predetermine time period). The high-speed signal transceiver 20 cooperates with the first CAN transceiver 10 to obtain the transmission opportunities through the arbitration mechanism of the CAN protocol. In this disclosure, “coupling” refers to transmitting a signal to or receiving a signal from a wire through components such as resistors, capacitors, inductors, or other elements. In addition, the arbitration mechanism for signal transmission in the wired communication system 100 remains the same as that defined in the CAN protocol.
Furthermore, the general CAN communication unit 3 or 3A in this embodiment makes the ordinary CAN communication unit 3 or 3A be coupled to the same CAN BUS to operate normally through a high-speed signal isolator 40. The high-speed signal isolator 40 isolates the high-speed signals on the CAN BUS, preventing the error counter (not shown) in the CAN communication unit 3 or 3A from value incrementing when receiving high-speed signals. One end of the high-speed signal isolator 40 is coupled to the CAN BUS, and the other end is coupled to a second CAN transceiver 30 and a second CAN controller 50 or the MCU.
As shown in
Furthermore, predetermined measures are implemented for the second CAN transceiver 30 to prevent misinterpreting signals from the high-speed signal transceiver 20 as error signals.
As previously mentioned, one method to enable the second CAN transceiver 30 connected onto the same CAN BUS to operate normally during the high-speed signal transceiver 20 transmits the signal is to dispose the high-speed signal isolator 40 between the second CAN transceiver 30 and the CAN BUS, or between the second CAN controller 50 or MCU and the CAN BUS. The high-speed signal isolator 40 isolates the signals transmitted by the high-speed signal transceiver, and transmits a specific signal to the connected ordinary second CAN transceiver 30. Specifically, during high-speed signal transmission, the high-speed signal isolator 40 continuously transmits another signal complying with the CAN protocol to the connected second CAN transceiver 30. This maintains the synchronization of the second CAN transceiver 30 and prevents its transmitting error counter (TX error counter) and receiving error counter (RX error counter) (not shown) from error cumulative value incrementing. The specialized first CAN transceiver 10 does not block the normal CAN signal on the CAN BUS, so that the second CAN transceiver 30 can make a normal response to the CAN signal on the CAN BUS.
The communication system 100 adopts a default mechanism, such as a special encoding arrangement within the normal CAN signal, so that the specialized first CAN transceiver 10 can predict when the high-speed signal transceiver 20 outputs the signal. This allows the specialized first CAN transceiver 10 to notify the high-speed signal transceiver 20 to receive or transmit the signal. The default mechanism can make all other communication units, connected to the same CAN BUS, know start and end times of transmissions of the high-speed signals, allowing them to properly receive and demodulate these signals. After the high-speed communication, all the communication units return to the original CAN mode for the arbitration of the next signal transmission. Referring to
In one embodiment, the fields of the standard CAN format in
Referring to
Please note that the high-speed signal transceiver 20 can transmit and receive an OFDM signal, a QAM signal or a certain SerDes signal. It transmits only when its associated high-speed communication unit obtains the opportunity to transmit, and only after the specialized first CAN transceiver 10 has ceased signal transmission.
As mentioned hereinabove, in
In addition to the data field and the CRC field, all other fields can utilize the transmission using the original CAN BUS message, preserving the advantage of CAN. This approach, combined with the implementation of the high-speed signal isolator, ensures compatibility with existing CAN BUS devices.
If the high-speed communication data is transmitted solely within the data field and CRC field of the standard CAN/CAN FD and extended CAN/CAN FD formats, the maximum time ratio can be used by the high-speed transmission is approximately 70%. To increase this ratio of the high-speed transmission, an alternative encoding method can be used to declare a longer period of continuous transmission time (e.g., 1 millisecond (ms)). This involves extending the combined duration of the data field and CRC field. The specialized first CAN transceiver 10 and its first CAN controller 11 can be configured to allow this kind of transmission. Because the high-speed communication unit usually has a crystal oscillator circuit or a built-in digital controlled crystal oscillator (DCXO), they can maintain the accurate clock synchronization over the extended periods, making this special format permissible. However, during the extended transmission, the high-speed signal isolator 40 still needs to maintain the synchronization of the ordinary second CAN transceiver 30 connected thereto and prevent its error count from incrementing. To achieve this, the high-speed signal isolator 40 needs to continuously transmits a fake EOF to the connected general second CAN transceiver 30 within a reasonable time. Furthermore, the high-speed signal isolator 40 continuously transmits the SOF and outputs the high-priority ID to the connected general second CAN transceiver 30, so that it is possible to block the connected ordinary second CAN transceiver 30 from getting the transmission opportunities.
Please note that the high-speed communication unit or the high-speed signal isolator can utilize a specialized ID to identify the mode for transmitting high-speed signals over a specialized long period of time. When the specialized ID is being used, the control field can be re-used to identify whether that the next continuous high-speed signal will to be outputted for a long period of time, and how long the continuous high-speed signal will be transmitted. This information can allow the high-speed signal isolator 40 to restrict the ordinary second CAN transceiver 30 according thereto. Please note that in the standard CAN format, the control fields are the fields IDE, r0, and DLC; and in the extended CAN format, the control fields are the fields r1, r0, and DLC.
Please note that if the wired communication system 100 continuously transmits the high-speed signals for the time exceeding the sum of the time of the data field and the time of the CRC field, then the high-speed signal isolator 40 continuously outputs another signal complying with the CAN protocol to the connected second CAN transceiver 30 or the second CAN controller 50. This ensures that the second CAN transceiver 30 or the second CAN controller 50 can remain synchronized with the wired communication system 100 without increasing the error count. Consequently, all communication units can participate in the next arbitration when the start of frame (SOF) of the wired communication system 100 appears next time.
In another embodiment, DLC within the control field is re-used. The original DLC is used to represent the data length (4-bit encoding) for message transmission. By modifying the encoding definition, the encoding can be used to represent the period of the long-time high-speed signal mode. Consequently, the data rate can be dramatically improved (e.g., reducing the time ratio occupied by low-speed CAN transmission to be less than 5%). After the transmission is completed, the mode returns to the original CAN mode to process the CAN signal transmission. This embodiment still retains the advantage of the CAN protocol. When the high-speed signals transmit the OFDM signal with the 100 MHz bandwidth and if the bit-loading for each sub carrier is 10 bits, then it represents that this wired communication system 100 can reach the physical layer (PHY) rate close to 1 Gbps (i.e., equivalent to the rate of 1000Base-T Ethernet). This high data rate is achieved while remaining the advantages of the network architecture in the CAN protocol, and may be compatible with the old CAN system. Compatibility with existing CAN systems is crucial for automotive component manufacturers, as it enables a seamless upgrade path without requiring significant modifications to existing hardware or software. When the wired communication system 100 is in a general high-speed transmission mode, the format of the control field in the data frame is kept to be the same as CAN protocol; Similarly, the format of the control field for the long-time high-speed transmission mode is also kept to be the same as CAN protocol, wherein the wired communication system 100 re-defines the time required by the high-speed signals in the control field to implement a transmission time extension.
Referring to
In summary, this disclosure provides a wired communication system integrating CAN and other high-speed communication systems to transmit and receive messages of CAN (or CAN FD) and other high speed communication technologies. Thus, the advantage of CAN BUS can be kept and the transmission data rate can also be increased.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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112138625 | Oct 2023 | TW | national |
112140069 | Oct 2023 | TW | national |