System identification and extraction of timing properties from controller area network (CAN) message traces

This work describes methods for the analysis of CAN message traces to identify the configuration of systems with a missing or incomplete message set specification, and also to detect the cause and find the possible remedy to timing faults or non-ideal timing behaviors. Based on the message id and time stamp recorded at a tracing node by a bus probe, the analysis reconstructs the expected message arrival time at the source node and detects the queuing and transmission policies used at the middleware- and driver-level by the supplier of each node. We show the application of our analysis method to two automotive case studies. In the first, a timing fault is analyzed and its causes are detected. In the second, the objective is to identify the message set and its configuration when this information is not available.