RTCAN - A Real-time CAN-bus Protocol for Robotic Applications

Martino Migliavacca, Andrea Bonarini, Matteo Matteucci

2013

Abstract

Robots are distributed systems where different devices perform specific tasks and need to exchange data to run the overall system. In this paper, the communication requirements of robotic systems are summarized, highlighting which characteristics are relevant to the different tasks and showing the limits of the present communication protocols. Then, RTCAN is presented: a new real-time CAN-Bus protocol for robotic applications, which aims at combining the advantages of different approaches to communication scheduling. RTCAN takes into account time-triggered communication derived from control loops, guaranteeing temporal determinism, as well as event-triggered communication by sensors, which are transmitted with low latency. An implementation of the protocol is available as open-source software library, which can easily be ported to new platforms. Finally, results from benchmarks performed on actual hardware are reported, showing the ability of RTCAN in handling heterogeneous communications.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Migliavacca M., Bonarini A. and Matteucci M. (2013). RTCAN - A Real-time CAN-bus Protocol for Robotic Applications . In Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics - Volume 2: ICINCO, ISBN 978-989-8565-71-6, pages 353-360. DOI: 10.5220/0004484303530360

in Bibtex Style

@conference{icinco13,
author={Martino Migliavacca and Andrea Bonarini and Matteo Matteucci},
title={RTCAN - A Real-time CAN-bus Protocol for Robotic Applications},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics - Volume 2: ICINCO,},
year={2013},
pages={353-360},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0004484303530360},
isbn={978-989-8565-71-6},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF
JO - Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics - Volume 2: ICINCO,
TI - RTCAN - A Real-time CAN-bus Protocol for Robotic Applications
SN - 978-989-8565-71-6
AU - Migliavacca M.
AU - Bonarini A.
AU - Matteucci M.
PY - 2013
SP - 353
EP - 360
DO - 10.5220/0004484303530360