While the CAN Calibration Protocol or CCP is a reasonably well known standard in Europe that continues to gain acceptance, its exposure in the American automotive electronics arena has to some extent been limited to the engine calibration area. A closer examination of the protocol reveals that the CCP is not just for calibration. With many general-purpose features including flash programming capability, the CAN Calibration Protocol is useful for a wide range of module development activities. CCP users have access to online measurement data and the ability to calibrate modules. This allows software development to occur not only in a lab environment but also during an in-vehicle test.
Even though U. S. companies using or evaluating the CAN Calibration Protocol include DaimlerChrysler, Ford, GM, Delphi, Motorola, TRW, Visteon, and several others, many product development engineers are unaware of this potentially reusable software. To help raise the level of awareness for this “new to the U.S.” technology, this paper introduces the history, purpose, and the upper-level structure of the CAN Calibration Protocol. Finally, there is a brief discussion of a CCP Driver implementation.