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Unlocking AMR Performance: The Importance of CAN Frame Capture in Field Testing with Precisol’s CAN bus Gateways
Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) are rapidly transforming industries from logistics and manufacturing to healthcare, automating tasks and enhancing efficiency. However, developing and deploying these sophisticated machines is a complex undertaking, with field testing being a critical phase. During these real-world trials, AMRs navigate dynamic environments, interact with diverse systems, and encounter unpredictable scenarios. Understanding precisely how an AMR’s internal components behave during these operations is paramount for validation, debugging, and optimization. At the heart of this understanding lies the ability to capture and analyze CAN frames.
The Crucial Role of CAN Frames in AMR Operations
The CAN (Controller Area Network) bus is the nervous system of most modern AMRs. It’s a robust, high-speed communication protocol that allows various electronic control units (ECUs) – such as motor controllers, sensor fusion modules (LIDAR, cameras), navigation systems, and safety controllers – to exchange data efficiently. Every command, every sensor reading, every status update, and every error message is encapsulated within a CAN frame.
During field testing, issues can arise that are difficult to diagnose through high-level logs alone:
- Intermittent Navigation Errors: Why did the robot briefly deviate from its path? Was it a sensor glitch, a control command misinterpretation, or a motor issue?
- Unexpected Stops/Starts: What triggered an abrupt halt? Was it a safety sensor, a communication timeout, or a software bug?
- Performance Degradation: Why is the battery draining faster than expected, or why is a motor overheating?
- Complex Interactions: How do multiple subsystems (e.g., lift mechanism, drive motors, safety scanners) communicate and synchronize during a complex task?
Without capturing the raw CAN frames, these questions often lead to lengthy, frustrating, and costly debugging cycles.
The Power of Capturing CAN Frames for Field Testing
Capturing CAN frames during AMR field testing provides an unparalleled level of diagnostic detail:
- Granular Event Sequencing: Every CAN message is time-stamped, allowing engineers to reconstruct the exact sequence of events leading up to an anomaly. This is vital for understanding cause-and-effect relationships.
- Root Cause Analysis: By analyzing the values within specific CAN IDs, engineers can pinpoint whether a problem originated from a faulty sensor, an incorrect command from the navigation stack, or an unexpected response from a motor controller.
- Performance Optimization: Detailed data on motor currents, encoder feedback, and control loop parameters allows for fine-tuning of motion control algorithms, leading to smoother, more energy-efficient, and precise robot movements.
- Validation and Verification: Captured CAN data provides objective evidence that the AMR’s subsystems are behaving as designed under various operating conditions.
- Predictive Maintenance: Analyzing trends in CAN data (e.g., increasing motor current for a given load, rising temperatures) can indicate impending component wear or failure, enabling proactive maintenance.
How Precisol’s CAN Bus Gateways Assist
Precisol’s CAN bus gateways are specifically designed to meet the rigorous demands of capturing and transmitting CAN frames from industrial AMRs, transforming field testing capabilities:
- Non-Intrusive Data Acquisition: Precisol’s CAN bus gateways connect directly to the AMR’s CAN bus, passively listening and recording all traffic without interfering with real-time robot operations.
- High-Fidelity Logging: They capture every CAN frame with precise timestamps, ensuring no critical data is missed, even during high-bandwidth communication.
- Integrated Telematics: CAN bus gateways include GNSS (GPS) for location data and LTE cellular modems for remote transmission. This means engineers can not only see what happened internally but also where and when it happened, correlating internal events with external environmental factors or specific locations on a test track.
- Remote Monitoring & Offloading: The gateways can stream CAN data in real-time to a cloud dashboard for live monitoring or store it locally for later, comprehensive offloading. This eliminates the need for technicians to physically connect to the robot after every test run, accelerating debugging.
- Robustness for Field Use: Built for industrial environments, Precisol’s gateways are ruggedized to withstand the vibrations, temperature variations, and dust common in AMR operating environments.
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Arima Leonardo
Electrician
Alex Piter
Designer
Mariya Komola
Developer
David Malan
Developer
Arima Leonardo
Electrician
Alex Piter
Designer
Mariya Komola
Developer
David Malan
Developer
