Extending CAN over the air: An interconnection study with IEEE802.11

The flexibility of wireless connectivity is appealing in the context of industrial networks. This paper discusses the use of a wireless protocol to interconnect remotely located fieldbuses. The focus of this paper is to analyze the feasibility and design issues related to this type of hybrid network architecture. Therefore, we concentrate on deriving appropriate bridging strategies for a network topology composed of remotely located CAN buses interconnected through a wireless local area network following the IEEE802.11g protocol. Using this very simple and cost-effective architecture, we show in this study that by intelligently leveraging the features of CAN and IEEE802.11g in the interconnection policies employed, the missed deadlines can be limited for the CAN frames carried by the wireless network.