Standardized CANopen device and application profiles simplify the task of integrating a CANopen system. Off-the-shelf CANopen CC devices, tools, and protocol stacks are widely available at reasonable prices. For system designers, it is very important to reuse application software. This requires not only communication compatibility, but also interoperability and interchangeability of devices. CANopen device, interface, and application profiles enable device manufacturers to provide their products with standardized interfaces to achieve CANopen devices with "plug and play" capability in CANopen networks. Nevertheless, CANopen allows implementing manufacturer-specific functionalities.

CANopen provides several communication objects, which enable device designers to implement desired network behavior into a device. With these communication objects, device designers can offer devices that can communicate process data, indicate device-internal error conditions, or influence and control the network behavior. In their products, device designers may also support CANopen functions that enable the devices to participate in point-to-point communication coherences in the network. As CANopen defines the internal device structure, the system designer knows exactly how to access a CANopen device and how to adjust the intended device behavior.

CANopen CC is based on a data link layer according to ISO 11898-1. The CANopen CC bit timing is specified in CiA 301 and allows the adjustment of data rates from 10 kbit/s to 1000 kbit/s. Although all specified CAN-ID addressing schemata are based on the 11-bit CAN-ID, CANopen CC supports the 29-bit CAN-ID as well. CANopen CC assumes a physical layer according to ISO 11898-2. Nevertheless, CANopen CC does not exclude other physical layer options.

Further information on the CANopen CC lower layers is available here.

A CANopen device consists of three logical parts. The CANopen protocol stack handles the communication via the CAN network. The application software provides the internal control functionality as well as the interface to the process hardware interfaces. The CANopen object dictionary interfaces the protocol as well as the application software. It contains references (indices) for all used data types and stores all communication and application parameters.  

The CANopen object dictionary is most important for CANopen device configuration and diagnostics. As device-internal reference, a 16-bit index which is given as 4-digit hexadecimal value, is used. The index range 1000_h to 1FFF_h provides references to all parameters that determine the CANopen communication behavior of the CANopen device. The index range 2000_h to 9FFF_h provides the references to all application-related parameters. CANopen distinguishes between proprietary parameters (index range 2000_h to 5FFF_h) and standardized parameters (index range 6000_h to 9FFF_h).

Further information on CANopen internal device architecture is available here.