The Controller Area Network (CAN) was originally developed to be used as a vehicle data bus system in passenger cars. Today, CAN controllers are available from over 20 manufacturers, and CAN is finding applications in other fields, such as medical, aerospace, process control, automation, and so on.

This book is written for students, for practising engineers, for hobbyists, and for everyone else who may be interested to learn more about the CAN bus and its applications.

The aim of this book is to teach you the basic principles of CAN networks and in addition the development of microcontroller based projects using the CAN bus. In summary, this book enables the reader to:

• Learn the theory of the CAN bus used in automotive industry
• Learn the principles, operation, and programming of microcontrollers
• Design complete microcontroller based projects using the C language
• Develop complete real CAN bus projects using microcontrollers
• Learn the principles of OBD systems used to debug vehicle electronics

You will learn how to design microcontroller based CAN bus nodes, build a CAN bus, develop high-level programs, and then exchange data in real-time over the bus. You will also learn how to build microcontroller hardware and interface it to LEDs, LCDs, and A/D converters.

The book assumes that the reader has some knowledge on basic electronics. Knowledge of the C programming language will be useful in later chapters of the book, and familiarity with at least one member of the PIC series of microcontrollers will be an advantage, especially if the reader intends to develop microcontroller based projects using the CAN bus.