Specialized Vehicle CAN Bus Simulator: From Modelling to Validation

Today vehicles can contain more than 100 electronic control units (ECUs) running automotive software. ECUs are interconnected with sensors, actuators and one another with different bus systems, such as the Controller Area Network (CAN). Because of its performance and characteristics, CAN bus is most widely used in the development of specialized vehicles for agriculture, construction and municipal purposes, among others. Specialized vehicles are usually made-to-order, making it challenging to test functionalities which entail data collection from multiple vehicles of the sort, including fleet management and predictive maintenance systems. This is why CAN bus simulators specifically made for specialized vehicles are needed. In this paper, we propose a simulation model realized as a CAN bus simulator and describe the validation methods which were used to ensure its accuracy.