FlexRay Overview

The FlexRay communications network is a new, deterministic, fault-tolerant, and high-speed bus system developed in conjunction with automobile manufacturers and leading suppliers.

FlexRay delivers the error tolerance and time-determinism performance requirements for X-by-wire applications (for example, drive-by-wire, steer-by-wire, brake-by-wire, etc.). The FlexRay protocol serves as a communication infrastructure for future generation high-speed control applications in vehicles by providing the following services:

• Message exchange service—Provides deterministic cycle-based message transport.
• Synchronization service—Provides a common timebase to all nodes.
• Start-up service—Provides an autonomous start-up procedure.
• Error management service—Provides error handling and error signaling.
• Symbol service—Allows the realization of a redundant communication path.
• Wakeup service—Addresses power management needs.