CAN Info Mail

This monthly email is for all CAN fellows.
September 2021

A word from the CiA Managing Director

The last third of the second year impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic is in front of us. There is no end in sight. CiA is going to continue with virtual meetings like the other international standardization bodies are doing. CiA can live with this situation. Of course, there is some delay, caused to the development of specifications. Nevertheless, I am satisfied with the CAN XL specification results. What I am missing is the on-site talks during the group meetings, conferences, seminars, and trade shows. I need them to understand what the CiA members and the CAN community are demanding.

I am usually optimistic with a tendency to have a conservative view on progress and success. I consider, many things need time and the world is not changing that quickly as it seems. Could be that this is owed to my age. Regarding international business trips and international events, I have some doubts that the world recovers to the days before Covid-19, soon.

We need to rediscover older marketing options and invent new ones. I think, magazines in PDF format are a good opportunity to combine traditional and modern marketing opportunities. Interesting is that the June issue of the CAN Newsletter has been downloaded more than 8000 times in just three months. In average, the download figure was about 4000 downloads pro issue.

Another marketing option are webinars. I was optimistic, because I thought online seminars are a good opportunity to share knowledge with interested parties. But it is not. Sitting in front of the screen is not the same as talking to an audience. Of course, some of the webinars had a lot of registrations, but just a few persons participated. And there is a habit to register very late, which makes CiA some headache in planning. Nevertheless, CiA continues to provide online events (see below). It can take some time for us to adapt our habits and to make webinars really successful. We need to improve this on both sides of the screens.

Regarding trade shows, I am really pessimistic. So far, the virtual fairs did not meet my expectations at all. Everybody likes to guide me to its individual website. No informal talks and no personal networking are really supported. One of the CiA’s home games, the SPS in Nuremberg, is still scheduled as face-to-face exhibition. Even if it would take place as planned in November this year, I have some doubts that there will be many visitors. The so-called 4th pandemic wave has arrived in Germany. I think, responsible managers will not ask their employees to visit exhibitions. But there is some hope that I can meet some CAN fellows on the fairground to have the informal talks, which I am missing. When there are not that many visitors, they might have sufficient time to talk to me. Another opportunity is to organize small online meetings with no dedicated agenda: Just for exchanging ideas, news, and knowledge. In the last month, I had some of them.

P.S. This email newsletter is another option to stay in contact. About 20000 subscribers get it monthly. Feedback is very welcome, forwarding to colleagues and business partners, too.

 

September issue of the CAN Newsletter magazine

The September 2021 magazine features the second part of the article about the evaluation of Classical CAN, CAN FD, and Ethernet regarding power consumption and other criteria. Additionally, there are application reports about hydraulic elevators, rescue stairs, pharmacy picking systems, and autonomous transport shuttles. Articles by Analog Devices and Gemac provide information about CAN engineering.

The articles can be downloaded individually or you can download the entire magazine.

CAN Newsletter Online

CAN bootloader workshop

Some CiA members like to specify a generic CAN bootloader. CiA organizes a workshop on September 22, which is also open for non-members. It is planned to discuss the objectives and to evaluate the different options. The workshop participants identify the necessary next steps. This can include the inauguration of a new CiA technical group. If interested, please contact CiA office by email.

CAN FD and CAN SIC transceiver

It seems that the carmakers are migrating increasingly to CAN FD. The first passenger cars implementing CAN FD networks are already on the road, e.g. from Ford, General Motors, Mercedes, and Volkswagen. There is also a trend to CAN SIC transceiver as specified in CiA 601-4, although there is yet only one supplier. Recently, some commercial vehicle makers started to evaluate CAN FD for high-voltage charging of e-trucks (point-to-point link). The non-automotive industry is still observing CAN FD, but first CANopen FD products are available.

Online seminars

  • 2021-09-14 (16:00-20:00 UTC+2): CAN1
  • 2021-09-15 (16:00-20:00 UTC+2): CANopen1

Seminars

Webinars

CiA technology days

1 in English language
2 in Russian language
3 in Chinese language
4 in German language

New CiA members since the last CiA Info Mail (CIM)

CiA has 707 members (September 01, 2021).

CiA Product Guides

Renewed entries

Follow us on social media

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