A CANopen Stack for PIC18 ECANTM Microcontrollers

CANopen is a field bus protocol based on the Controller Area Network (CAN). As the name implies, it is a open network standard accepted throughout the world. While created as a field bus protocol for industrial automation, CANopen finds use in a wide range of other non-industrial applications. There are so many possibilities, in fact, that it is possible to write volumes on specialized uses of the protocol. Rather than being specific to one narrow application or even one field, we present here a more generalized approach: a generic communication stack based on CANopen that can be tailored to the user's needs. This article focuses only on what is covered in the CAN in Automation (CiA) standard DS-301. In fact, most of the discussion is limited to the predefined areas of the specification, with emphasis on understanding how the code provided with this application note functions and how users might develop an application on the CANopen Stack.