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wilamowski-b-m-irwin-j-d-industrial-communication-systems-2011

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44-4 Industrial Communication Systems<br />

# Bits:<br />

3 ... 15<br />

1 2 8 2 8 2 2<br />

Idle<br />

Idle<br />

Transmission<br />

start sequence<br />

Frame start<br />

sequence<br />

Byte start<br />

sequence<br />

Frame end<br />

sequence<br />

FIGURE 44.3<br />

Coded frame (static segment).<br />

In the dynamic segment, an additional dynamic trailing sequence is inserted after the frame end<br />

sequence. The dynamic trailing sequence is a low period of variable length followed by a high bit; it<br />

extends a frame until the next action point.<br />

Termination needs to be applied at the two nodes that are set apart with the longest wiring distance.<br />

It is calculated as equal to the nominal cable impedance between the two points. One concept is split<br />

termination, where one half of the cable impedance to ground is connected between the two bus lines.<br />

Furthermore, a common mode choke should be applied between bus driver and termination circuitry.<br />

The maximum transfer rate is 10.Mbps/channel allowing for a maximum cable length of up to 24.m<br />

between two active components. Hence, when two cascaded star couplers are in use up to 72.m can be<br />

spanned at 10.Mbps. Lowering the data transfer rates allows elongating the cabling; in particular, reducing<br />

the data rate, for example, to 5.Mbps, allows doubling the cabling distance.<br />

The standard specifies an electrical physical layer using either shielded or unshielded twisted pair<br />

cables. An optical medium can be used as well; however, the latter is not yet specified in the standard.<br />

44.3 System Architecture<br />

To address the diverse requirements of the automotive industry, the FlexRay specification allows for<br />

a lot of different topologies and options in the node design.<br />

44.3.1 topologies<br />

A <strong>communication</strong> system of multiple nodes connected via at least one <strong>communication</strong> channel directly (bus<br />

topology) or by star couplers (star topology) is called a cluster. FlexRay supports point-to-point, linear bus,<br />

star topologies, or hybrids thereof cascaded with up to two star couplers, cf. Figure 44.4. Furthermore, <strong>communication</strong><br />

can take place in a redundant fashion via two separate channels or in a nonredundant fashion.<br />

A maximum of 22 active nodes may be attached to one segment (a linear bus or a passive star); there<br />

is, however, no guarantee that such a system is operational. It is up to the system designer to verify the<br />

electrical interplay between bus drivers, cables, and termination circuitry.<br />

Node A Node B Node C<br />

Node D Node E Node A Node B Node C Node D<br />

Star coupler<br />

Star coupler<br />

FIGURE 44.4<br />

Topology examples.<br />

© <strong>2011</strong> by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC

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