Just a small effort on your pedal brakes, in no time you will be in a halt; a slight swerve on the steering, your car is ready for drifting; a small push on the buttons, you are enchanted with lights; a maze of wires that is in your vehicle is the key and responsible for all of the signals. The Controller Area Network (CAN), which is incredibly complex, is what every driver should know. To top it off, most new car owners, or even hipster owners, doesn’t even know why this things happens, why’s my car been squeaking and rattling all the way up home. But for some time now everybody got a big question, and it is mainstreaming nowadays, as to why my electronic components are failing. Then it maybe the time to discuss the little-known aspect of your car: its computer network. Looking back, it was termed as electrical system, but time is evolving so too is technology, that it just did not stay as dumb moving electrons. Basically, these electronic components are call Controller Area Network, but specifically, the system is composed of wires and software protocols acting as neurons connecting the vehicle’s computer and sensors, which is also known as Controller Area Network bus.

For Everyone’s Information

If you happen to question car technical specialists about Controller Area Network (CAN), they will give you one answer: incredibly complex. The design of CAN is similar to that of the freeway system. Data move like vehicles starting from high-traffic highways down to the local roads. Thousands of data traverse in the freeway any time and can get off at any exit. Throughout the car, different kinds of computers called electronic control units, or ECU, governs the intersection of the road system. Each ECU in the car has a specific job: controlling the closing and opening of the window, the starting of the engine and transmission, unlocking doors, and the like. These units or computers have their respective sensors and switches wired in to detect variables such as temperature, voltage, pressure, acceleration, and many other signals.

Like a freeway, the CAN bus allows the data from all the sensors of the car to circulate all the time. Each ECU transmits all its sensors and programming information constantly, transmitting and requesting signals in as much as 2000 signals and are floating around the network anytime. At the same time, all the ECU also listens for some kind of “request” from the sensors which directly get its command from the driver, in order to carry out the work. There is no such thing as “central command system” just circulation of information that is always available on all ECUs.

As we see it now, our cars are able to carry out every command we request by all these because of the sensors. Take for example the power sliding doors of the minivans. These doors are operated by an ECU called the body control module. Sensors are constantly sending out signals whether the door is close or open, when the driver pushes a button to close the door, the signal from that switch broadcasts the signal across the network. Whenever an ECU detects signal, whether it is a request or something, the specific ECU automatically act out.