CAN bus history

In February 1986, Robert Bosch GmbH presented the CAN (controller area network) bus at the SAE (Society of automotive engineers) congress in Detroit (USA). The document, published in Bosch's SAE 860391, described the CAN bus protocol (CAN specification 1.0), which already constituted the CAN reference model. The new communication bus system was introduced under the name Automotive serial controller area network.

The project had been initiated a few years earlier, in the early 1980s, when Bosch engineers evaluated existing serial bus communication systems for use in cars. As none of the available serial communication protocols was able to meet the requirements of automotive engineers, the development of a new serial bus system was launched in 1983. Since then, CAN has been officially promoted by the CAN in Automation Association (CiA), founded in 1992 (