Modelling CANopen communications according to the socket paradigm

At present, a number of platforms are becoming available for the implementation of intelligent field devices, which are based on low-cost microcontrollers and open-source real-time operating systems. To take full benefit from these platforms and to ease the task of developing and porting the application software, a standard interface has to be provided to cope with communication facilities. In this paper an application programming interface for CANopen is introduced that relies on the well-known socket paradigm. Despite its inherent simplicity, it is very flexible and offers the programmer all the functionalities foreseen by the CANopen specification