A Dynamic Precedence Queue Mechanism to Improve Transmission Efficiency in CAN Networks

This paper presents a dynamic precedence queue mechanism to resolve unexpected transmission delay of a lower priority transaction in a CAN based system which keeps a fixed priority in data transactions. The mechanism is implemented in the upper sub-layer of the data link layer (DLL), which is fully compatible with the original medium access control layer protocol of CAN. Thus the mechanism can be implemented dynamically while the data transactions are going on without any hardware modification. The CAN protocol was originally developed to be used in the automotive industry and it was recently applied for a broader class of automated factories. Even though CAN is able to satisfy most of real-time requirements found in automated environments, it is not to enforce either a fair subdivision of the network bandwidth among the stations or a satisfactory distribution of the access delays in message transmissions. The proposed solution provides a superset of the CAN logical link layer control, which can coexist with the older CAN applications. Through the real experiments, effectiveness of the proposed mechanism is verified.