The Intelligent FlexRay Safety Monitoring Platform Based on the Automotive Hybrid Topology Network

FlexRay is a new high bandwidth communication protocol for automotive systems, providing time-triggered transmission of periodic frames in a static segment and priority-based scheduling in a dynamic segment. The analysis techniques are required to compute bounds for the FlexRay frame response times, before the standard is used for safety and time-critical applications. In this paper, we introduce an Intelligent FlexRay Safety Monitoring Platform (IFSMP) on which safety monitoring applications can be developed. The solution consists of design of stable, optimized FlexRay hybrid topology network and a low cost hardware platform for Steer-by-Wire, Throttle-by-Wire and Brake-by-Wire nodes. Additionally, the hybrid topology network is proposed and developed to implement a vehicular Drive-by-Wire system, which uses FlexRay protocol as the backbone of data communication.