A major trend in industrial systems is the application of communication networks technologies, such as CAN (Controller Area Network), in distributed control systems. A challenging problem in the development of distributed system based on communication networks is the network delay effects in the performance of the system. This fact has motivated the development of simulation tools and models to calculate these delays, to simulate the timing behavioral and evaluate the performance of these systems. This work presents the development of a mathematical model and a Colored Petri Nets model to the simulation of CAN-based distributed systems. The flexibility and potential obtained with the developed models allow determining and analyzing several performance parameters related to communication network and the distributed control. An example of a CAN-based distributed system applied to perform the control of a mobile robot demonstrates the functionalities of the models and its applicability to the analysis of any CAN application.
CAN protocol; Colored Petri Nets; Mathematical model; Network delays
