Automotive embedded system based on enhanced FTT-CAN

Embedded computing systems have become widely used in many areas. Great part of those systems has time constraints which are characterized as real-time embedded system. In nowadays, distributed computing has reached the automotive market, where some fieldbuses are already being used as communication platform. Some researches have presented different approaches in the real-time embedded communication system domain aiming to cover the growing demands of performance, predictability and reliability of emerging applications. Such requirements involve low latency, reduced jitter, time composability, fault-tolerance and support for future extensions. Particularly in the automotive industry where is considering the possibility of replacing the major part of mechanical and/or hydraulic systems by electronic “by-wire” systems, the importance of ensuring predictable behavior while also presenting some degree of flexibility plays a key role. Regarding to the flexibility, the FTT (Flexible Time-Triggered) communication model stands out against the others ones. A distributed system based on a FTT communication infrastructure can adapts with the application requirement making possible to add new nodes that will need interact with others ones. This paper presents an automotive embedded system based on enhanced FTT-CAN protocol over ColdFire platforms running RTAI with an embedded Linux. In addition improvement proposals are discussed. The improvements are concerning in the messages and tasks scheduling.