Configuration Guideline for CANopen Networks
Martin Rostan · 2003
Unlike most other fieldbus systems, CANopen provides many degrees of freedom to configure the communication behaviour of the network. Product manuals rarely describe simple paths to achieve the optimal configuration. Network analysis tools generate a lot of data that has to be interpreted by CANopen experts. Most CANopen users have difficulties to configure their network smartly and quickly and end up with sub-optimal setups. The paper first briefly explains the various configuration possibilities and shows the optimisation targets, depending on the application requirements. The influence of the parameters on reaction time, determinism and bus load is shown. Then a configuration guideline for CANopen networks is introduced, which allows one to optimize the network step by step using simple indicators.