Hybrid FlexRay/CAN Automotive Networks

In recent years, the automotive industry has witnessed an exponential growth in the number of vehicular embedded applications, leading to the adoption of distributed implementations for systems in the powertrain and chassis domains. The Controller Area Network (CAN) protocol has been a de facto standard for intra-vehicular communications, while the FlexRay Communication System is being promoted as the future de facto standard for network interconnections of applications related to X-by-wire systems. Due to the characteristics of CAN and FlexRay, the coexistence of both protocols in the same vehicle is expected, leading to the use of gateways to manage the information exchange between electronic control units connected to different network segments. This chapter describes the main characteristics of CAN and FlexRay protocols, surveying the literature addressing schedulability and time analysis in both FlexRay and CAN protocols. The chapter also outlines the state-of-the-art in research about gateways for intra-vehicular communication networks.