An Advanced Body System Application Using Active Junction Boxes with Carlink Data Communication

This paper describes the benefits which can be realised in vehicle harness design by utilising the concept of harness modularity and junction boxes. Additional gains can be achieved by incorporating electronics within the junction boxes to make them “active”.

Active junction boxes may communicate with each other over serial datalinks, in this case using the J1850 (Carlink) protocol, to further reduce harness complexity and provide system flexibility.

A full-vehicle body-system study is described together with the results of an application to a mid 1990s highline vehicle.