About the Customer:
Our customer is an Automotive Tier-1 supplier with continued focus on evolving software technologies related to battery management system, telematics and more.
Business Challenge:
Automotive solutions that work on multiple CAN channels require dynamic configuration of the CAN interface layer using the CAN DBC files. While developing a similar solution, our customer’s team felt the need for a CAN IL tool with capability of simultaneous configuration of 4 CAN channels with different DBC files.
Performing this task manually would cause several issues such as:
- Increased time to configure each CAN channel
- Errors introduced by manual handling of CAN interface layer configuration file
Owing to these challenges, the development team of our customer decided to build an automated tool that could dynamically configure the desired CAN channels or all 4 of them in one go. The customer approached us with this challenge and as always, we were happy to help.
Embitel’s Solution:
Developing a 4 channel CAN interface layer configuration tool was something new for us. In the past, we had developed auto configuration code generator tool, but this was different in many aspects. Our team rose to the challenge and first chose the development tool ideal for this solution which is Qt.
The development team built upon its experience of developing a single-channel tool and developed this Auto CAN IL tool. As per the requirements provided by the customer, this tool gives the option to choose the DBC file, select the CAN channel for configuration and even look into the tx and rx messages inside the DBC file.
Here’s a snapshot of the Auto CAN IL configuration tool:
Salient Features of the Auto CAN interface layer configuration tool are:
- 4 different DBC files can be chosen at one instance
- Configuration files for all 4 CAN channels can be simultaneously generated
- Network nodes inside the DBC files can be selected before the configuration
- Schedule time, message queue size can be customized for each configuration
Along with the Auto CAN IL configuration tool, we also provided the High-level data document and unit and functional test reports and MISRA C compliance report.
Embitel’s Impact:
The Auto CAN IL config tool single handedly reduces the configuration time by 4 times, considering only one CAN channel is configured at a given instance. On top it, the fact that 4 different DBCs can be configured solves the most difficult pain point for the customer of dynamic configuration of CAN interface layer.
Tools and Technologies:
CAN IL configuration tool was developed using Qt, which is a cross-platform software for developing user interfaces and applications for embedded systems.
