Easing the Transition of System Designs from CAN to FlexRay

FlexRay is a new networking protocol for embedded electronics. Technology using FlexRay provides improved throughput, determinism, and redundancy relative to existing designs using the Controller Area Network (CAN) protocol. Two criticisms of FlexRay are its increased cost and complexity compared to CAN. Although the cost will be reduced over time as usage goes up, the complexity issue is a problem of perception to some extent.

This paper presents an example network design for CAN, and then adds network frames such that the throughput of CAN is exceeded. Next the paper describes how the example network design can be transitioned to FlexRay. The transition applies design practices used with CAN to reduce the complexity of FlexRay.