Development of VeNetSpy: a Generic Monitoring Software for CAN-based ECUs and In-Vehicle Networks

During the development process of automotive electronic control units (ECUs) and in-vehicle networks connected via CAN bus, an efficient software toolset that can be used to monitor the work process of ECUs and the work load of the bus is indispensable to ensure the product quality, as well as to shorten the development cycle and hence reduce the cost. A generic monitoring software, VeNetSpy (In-Vehicle Network Spy), which consists of a communication module (CM), an in-vehicle network configuration database (VND) at application layer and its management tool (VND Editor), a message parsing module (MsgParser), and an application module (AM), has been developed. The CM module acts as a middleware between data link layer and application layer to encapsulate the difference among different CAN interface devices, and provides AM module with a set of unified interfaces to manage communication devices. VND is an object-oriented database used to model the topology of in-vehicle network and describe the properties of CAN messages transferred among various ECUs and the configuration of signals contained in the data field of corresponding CAN data frame. MsgParser is an independent module used to extract the actual value of signals from the data contained in a CAN data frame. The AM module is an integrated environment used to trace the CAN messages among ECUs, parse the messages of interested and draw graphics of signals according to their description configured in VND, as well as calculate the parameters representing the statistical characteristics of communication bus.