Controller Area Network: field bus originally developed for automobile applications which is now used in many sectors, from industrial to tertiary.

CAN in Automation: international organization of users and manufacturers of CAN products.

Communication OBject: transport unit on CAN bus. A COB is identified by a unique identifier, which is coded on 11 bits, [0, 2047]. A COB contains a maximum of 8 data bytes. The priority of a COB transmission is shown by its identifier - the weaker the identifier, the more priority the associated COB has.

Cyclic Redundancy Checksum: cyclic redundancy checksum indicates that no character has been "deformed" during frame transmission.

Carrier Sense, Multiple Access / Collision Avoidance: communication control method on a network featuring the link layer.

Deutsches Institut für Normung: German standardization institute.

Draft Standard: specifications document created by the CIA organization.

Electronic Data Sheet: description file for each CAN device (provided by the manufacturers). To add a CAN device to the bus with Sycon configuration software, select the corresponding EDS. The EDS are available on the website http://www.can-cia.de or from the hardware provider.

Life Time = Life Time factor x Guard Time.

Logical Link Control.

Medium Access Control.

Medium Dependent Interface.

Mean Time Between Failure: mean time between two failures.

Object Dictionary: object dictionary recognized by CAN. A hexadecimal code is given to each objet type, the dictionary regroups all the object’s codes.

Personal Computer Memory Card International Association

Process Data Object: there are RPDOs (Receive PDO) and TPDOs (Transmit PDO).

Process Data Unit: there are APDUs (Application PDUs). A PDU on the link layer is an APDU encapsulated by headings and bytes, which characterize this link layer.

Physical Medium Attachment.

Service Data Object: there are SSDOs (Server SDO) and CSDOs (Client SDO).

Transmission Access Point: the bus connection unit.