Development and testing of a communication network for a drive-by-wire industrial vehicle

Drive-by-wire (DbW) is an automotive technology aimed at substituting the traditional driving equipment with an all-electric system. In particular it utilizes a communication network to transmit the driving commands. This paper is focused on developing and testing a communication network for a DbW industrial vehicle. At first the safety requirements for the DbW system are established and its architecture is derived. Afterwards the specifications for the communication network are formulated. Two viable solutions for the network protocol are then evaluated and their communication performance is analyzed. At last an experimental network is set up and its behavior under data transmission is tested.