CAN Sensor Interface Brainstorming

Project Owners: @Michael Botros

 

Action Items:

Update needs assessment and implementation strategy

Meet with EFS

Project Timeline

  • As of writing, this project is not comp critical

  • Based on initial difficulty assessment and scale of project, this project could target testing and implementation in the next competition cycle (2025)

  • Basic Timeline

    • Research and Full Architecture Outline - October/November 2023

    • Component Selection - December 2024

    • Schematic - January/February 2024

    • Layout/Routing - March/April 2024

    • Bring-up and validation - May 2024

Needs Assessment

Main goal of this project is to be able to route long sensor/data cables across the drone and maintain signal integrity. A differential signaling method is desired that is also easy to implement to minimize common mode noise and allow long data wires to be routed to various sensors on the drone.

This solution needs to be flexible and adaptable for various airframes and protocols.

 

 

This board will serve as communication interface board that will allow half duplex communication between I2C, SPI, UART and CAN

 

Implementation Strategies

Method 1:

https://www.digikey.ca/en/products/detail/diodes-incorporated/PI7C9X760CZDEX/7802413?s=N4IgjCBcpmAMVQGMoDMCGAbAzgUwDQgD2UA2iAMwBMFcVAHCALqEAOALlCAMrsBOASwB2AcxABfQgFoqiECkj8ArgWJkQAVmbidQA

I2C SPI to UART bridge

Use CAN transceiver to get serial data from CAN bus and feed that into the bridge

 

Method 2:

Use CAN transceiver to generate serial data and feed into MCU to buffer. Use MCU with EFS drivers to transmit CAN data on I2C or SPI or even UART

  • Perhaps some STM ICs support CAN directly

  • More compact solution, one IC can breakout for all communication standards

 

Method 3:

Power over Coax

  • Use coax cable to transmit power and data serially on the same line

  • Requires complicated filtering and drivers but only requires one coax cable per sensor