EDF message scheduling on controller area network

The controller area network (CAN) has a maximum transmission rate of 1 Mbit/s and its fixed priorities-based medium access control (MAC) limits the maximum bus utilisation when timeliness guarantees are required. An implementation of earliest deadline first (EDF) message scheduling on the CAN, based on the FTT-CAN (flexible time-triggered communication on CAN) protocol, is presented, which allows higher utilisation factors with timeliness guarantees. The advantages of using EDF instead of rate-monotonic scheduling on the FTT-CAN are highlighted, and a comparison with other implementations of EDF scheduling on the CAN is presented.