Plenty of Traffic in Vehicles’ Central Nervous Systems
High-performance data connections are needed to deal with the higher safety requirements for automobiles and the increased networking of vehicle components. To transmit vehicle data at high bandwidths and in real time, researchers at Bosch are now working within an international consortium to develop a data bus known as FlexRay.
Motor vehicles are being equipped with an increasing number of electronic features, including systems that coordinate power door locks, trigger airbags after a collision, operate the displays in instrument clusters, and regulate climate control systems. All of these systems are operated and monitored by control units that read out sensor data and issue commands. This means that the control units need to be able to communicate with one another at intervals that in many cases last only a few milliseconds. That’s why the units are connected by data lines — but not from every one to every other, because that would be too complicated and the required cables would be too heavy. Instead, the units share a common data line, known as a data bus. Today’s vehicles contain various bus systems that are matched to different application domains, such as the powertrain with engine and transmission control, body electronics with power locking and power window lifts, and infotainment systems with radio and navigation.
Back in the 1980s, Bosch developed a data bus known as the Controller Area Network (CAN). With CAN, the company created a communication network that made it possible to simply and efficiently exchange information via a common data line at a transfer rate of up to 1 MBit/s. These days, the CAN data bus can be found in just about every vehicle, and it will remain part of the standard technology into the next decade.
Since the advent of CAN, however, completely new ideas have been developed. One involves the electronic control of steering and braking operations (x-by-wire). In this type of system, a driver’s steering and braking actions are conveyed exclusively by means of electronic signals transferred via data lines. Successful implementation of such a concept requires that all commands can reliably reach their destination within a specified period of time, regardless of operating conditions. To ensure that this is the case, an extremely reliable bus system — known as FlexRay — was created. FlexRay delivers data transfer rates of 10 MBit/s and will soon be ready to enter mass production. What’s more, Bosch business units have already developed control units for use with a FlexRay bus system.
Back in the 1980s, Bosch developed a data bus known as the Controller Area Network (CAN). With CAN, the company created a communication network that made it possible to simply and efficiently exchange information via a common data line at a transfer rate of up to 1 MBit/s. These days, the CAN data bus can be found in just about every vehicle, and it will remain part of the standard technology into the next decade.
Since the advent of CAN, however, completely new ideas have been developed. One involves the electronic control of steering and braking operations (x-by-wire). In this type of system, a driver’s steering and braking actions are conveyed exclusively by means of electronic signals transferred via data lines. Successful implementation of such a concept requires that all commands can reliably reach their destination within a specified period of time, regardless of operating conditions. To ensure that this is the case, an extremely reliable bus system — known as FlexRay — was created. FlexRay delivers data transfer rates of 10 MBit/s and will soon be ready to enter mass production. What’s more, Bosch business units have already developed control units for use with a FlexRay bus system.
The data bus works diligently behind the scenes to ensure a secure link between the control units under all conditions.
