Improving the Behavior of a Distributed Adaptive Cruise Control System by Reducing Transmission Jitter

摘要

The Controller Area Network (CAN) protocol is inherently used in distributed real-time, resource- constrained embedded systems due to its deep roots in automotive as well as other industries. In CAN, bit-stuffing is employed in the physical hardware layer to synchronize the clocks of sending and receiving microcontroller nodes. Such a mechanism causes the frame length to vary depending on the sequence of data transmitted in the network and hence introduces timing jitter. To address this problem, a wide-range of software techniques have been proposed and found useful in practical embedded system applications. In this paper, we seek to verify the effectiveness of the software bit stuffing technique in dea ling with transmission jitter and show how such an improvement in jitter behavior can help to improve the performance of a distributed CAN-based adaptive cruise control system used in modern passenger cars.