Efficient engineering through simulation of CAN based control systems

摘要

Developing applications for distributed CAN based control systems is often a challenging task due to limited access to target hardware, especially in early phases of a project. Even with access to the target hardware the process of testing and debugging can be highly inefficient and thereby expensive. The testing and debugging of the systems can be simplified by using simulation technology since black-box functional testing is minimized. In this paper we present how simulation technology may be used for embedded control systems and particularly how it has been used within our organization for several years with very satisfactory results. We will present how a set of tools, which includes a complete simulation core for communication buses, IO handling, memory handling etc, may be used to simulate a complete embedded control system in a single standard PC. It is also possible to use this simulation technique to emulate/simulate the surrounding target system like I/O signals, external communication buses etc by development of environmental models. Since this simulation also has support for National Instruments IO-boards as well as a number of CAN adapters, mixed simulation may be used for system and hardware tests. By using these techniques, higher efficiency can be obtained, and the time to market can be greatly reduced.