Lars Berno Fredriksson, president of Kvaser AB and chairman of the J1939 Next Generation Task Force, has published a white paper discussing a technique for multiplexing CAN with another protocol to meet the high-speed, high data volumes required by next generation heavy duty vehicles. 

This white paper is based on a presentation that was made to SAE’s J1939 NextGen committee in September 2018. The paper proposes a theoretical solution to CAN’s low bandwidth, suggesting that a Virtual CAN Converter (VCC) cooperates with the standard CAN Controller in instances where it would be beneficial to transmit CAN information on a high-speed physical layer, such as Ethernet. By employing a VCC that multiplexes CAN with another protocol with a higher bitrate for requirements other than system control, CAN’s many unique advantages would be retained, including the independency of the design and execution of control tasks, and a faster bitrate could be achieved.

Feedback on this whitepaper is welcome. Please email [email protected] with your comments.