ECU over Named Data Networking (ECUoNDN): Data Management and Integration with Heterogenous Automotive Networks

 Abstract—Autonomous vehicles use variety of automotive  communication protocols in order for different Electronic Control  Units (ECUs) to intra-communicate such as Controller Area  Network (CAN), FlexRay or Ethernet to address the requirements  of ultra-low latency and higher bandwidth due to the increased  number of sensors. This leads to an increased number of wires,  complexity and weight of the harness needed to connect each ECU  to the network. In the case of an autonomous tractor trailer with  autonomy sensors, tractor-trailer communication harness with  new wires to be able to communicate with additional  communication protocols at the tractor side and the trailer  harness will be required to be plugged or unplugged every time a  trailer gets coupled or uncoupled with a tractor. In this paper, we  propose a new network architecture and intra-communication  link for an autonomous tractor trailer ECU with additional  autonomy sensors to reduce the number of wires needed to  communicate different data types to the autonomous tractor  network buses to two wires or eliminate the wires in case of a  conventional tractor-trailer using a wireless medium, in addition  to a method to manage multi-protocol data transfer between the  trailer and the tractor. We conducted an experiment to evaluate  the performance of Named Data Networking (NDN) when used in  communication between ECUs that had positive outcome and  indicated the high potential compatibility of NDN with vehicular  communication.  1