Embedded Systems Design - Europe - August/September 2007 - (Page 10)

news CAN in Automation celebrates ﬁrst 15 years Since its formation in 1992, 466 companies have become members of the CAN in Automation (CiA) international users’ and manufacturers’ group . The nonproﬁt association headquartered in Erlangen, Germany, promotes the use of the internationally standardized controller area network (CAN) serial bus system (ISO 11898-1). Many microcontroller manufacturers have implemented CAN, which is mainly used in passenger cars. In 2006, more than 500 millions of CAN controllers were sold. However, the main focus of CiA is the non-automotive market. This includes industrial control systems, medical equipment, and many other embedded control system applications. In particular in medical applications CAN is one of the market-leading embedded network technologies. GE Healthcare, Philips Medical Systems, Siemens Medical Solutions, and many small- and medium-sized companies are using CAN extensively in their medical devices as open and embedded networks. CiA has developed the CANopen application layer (CiA 301/EN 503254) and a lot of CANopen proﬁles for generic and dedicated devices and application ﬁelds. “The development of CANopen proﬁles will be continued in the next years,” said Holger Zeltwanger, initiator and managing director of the CAN organization. “We are just calling for experts in photovoltaic, wind power and low-voltage gear devices, in order to develop proﬁles for these markets.” Professional photovoltaic control systems consist of many sensors, inverters, and other devices that have to be connected. CANopen is dedicated embedded network for outdoor applications. CiA has scheduled a workshop in March in order to explain the possibilities of CANopen in this application ﬁeld. The CANopen proﬁle for specialpurpose passenger cars (taxi and police cars) is already under development as well as the proﬁles for laboratory automation. “The broad range of applications that are covered by CANopen is a beneﬁt for low-volume application, because they can use a lot of already for reasonable prices available CANopen hardware, software, and tools,” stated Arnulf Lockmann, CiA business director. This is also true for construction machines and other off-road vehicles. The workshops in March in Germany and in April in USA will show ﬁrst applications and the future strategy in standardizing dedicated CANopen proﬁles for this business. The CANopen speciﬁcations include the recently published CiA 309 Ethernet/CANopen gateway speciﬁcation. It has been developed jointly with the ModbusTCP association. In February, CiA organizes a workshop on gateways, routers, and bridges presenting also the CANopen multiple network speciﬁcation and the standardized gateway to AS-Interface. More than 20 CANopen special interest groups cover applications ﬁelds including maritime electronics, rail vehicles, lift control systems, and garbage trucks. A more detailed version can be found at www.eetimes.eu/201804708. QNX provides access to Neutrino source code QNX Software Systems is opening access to the source code of its microkernel-based Neutrino realtime operating system (OS). It will make code for free download and the ﬁrst release includes the code to the QNX Neutrino microkernel, the base C library, and a variety of board support packages for popular embedded and computing hardware. Developers will be able to improve, modify, or extend that code for their own purposes or for the community at large. They can then choose to contribute back those changes to QNX Software Systems and the QNX development community or to keep their modiﬁcations private and proprietary. These changes are part of a hybrid software model created by QNX, which offers commercial and noncommercial 10 licensees the ability to participate in the OS development process, similar to projects in the open source world. Through a transparent development process, software designers at QNX will publish development plans, post builds and bug ﬁxes, and provide moderated support to the development process. They will also collaborate with customers and QNX community, using public forums, source code repositories, and typical project-based ‘meritocracies’ to help direct development initiatives. QNX has also introduced a new community portal website, called Foundry27, as the new hub for its transparent development initiative. Customers and developers can access resources relating to the QNX Neutrino RTOS and the QNX Momentics IDE, as well as to new community projects. Upon completing the free registration, users can choose from three different software licenses and gain immediate access to free copies of most QNX software products, as well as source code for most of these elements. QNX software products will still retain royalty requirements for commercial deployments of QNX Neutrino components and extension bundles, and commercial users will continue to pay for QNX Momentics IDE development seats. However, individuals such as noncommercial developers or academic faculty members will be given access to all available QNX products at no cost for noncommercial use. AUGUST – SEPTEMBER 2007 | embedded systems design europe | www.embedded.com/europe 010_ESDE.indd 10 7/09/07 14:32:04 http://www.eetimes.eu/201804708 http://www.embedded.com/europe

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Embedded Systems Design - Europe - August/September 2007

Contents News Cover Feature: Annual Study Uncovers the Embedded Market DSP Serves the Convergence Needs of Small Business Embedded Test Offers Unique Value for Serial I/O The Software Detective: First-Fault Data Capture Boards May Shrink But Performance Doesn't New Products Advertising Contacts

Embedded Systems Design - Europe - August/September 2007

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