The last exhibition, where CiA was present with an own both, has closed the doors. The SPS industrial automation tradeshow was well visited: About 50000 attendees came to Nuremberg, Germany. Many CiA members presented their CAN-related products as well as non-members. The CiA 402 profile for drives and motion control is the dominating approach for frequency inverters, servos, and stepper motors. Although, the companies show in majority CANopen CC (classic) products, the request for CANopen FD is increasing.

On the fairground, there were some discussions about the future of CANopen Safety. After 20 years, it seems to be necessary to update the EN 50325-5 (CANopen Safety) standard to meet the upcoming requirements of referenced standards such as IEC 61508. CiA is going to start beginning of next year to review the CANopen Safety protocol. It could be that CANopen FD with data-field length up 64 byte is an appropriate and future-proofed option.

In October, CiA participated in the Interlift exhibition. CANopen Lift as specified in the CiA 417 series gains increasingly acceptance as the only open approach of elevator control systems. CANopen Lift is not only used for new elevators, but also in many retrofit projects. Retrofitting elevators is an important business. There was some discussion on the fairground, how to fulfill the requirements regarding the European Cyber Resilience Act. CiA has already started to discuss this topic in the SIG (special interest group) CANopen Lift. In a first proposal, the second part of the ID field (18 bit) is used to implement cybersecurity measures. The next Interlift takes place in Nuremberg in 2025.

Earlier this year, CiA exhibited at the WCX tradeshow by SAE in Detroit and the Embedded World exhibition in Nuremberg. On both events, CiA spread information about the CAN XL ecosystem. In May, CiA has organized a CAN XL plugfest testing interoperability of IP cores and CAN SIC XL prototype transceivers. NXP and STM provide first engineering samples of micro-controllers with on-chip CAN XL protocol controllers. Infineon and Renesas have pre-announced CAN XL support. Prototypes are expected by end of this year or beginning of the next year. Perhaps, we will see first engineering samples at the Embedded World 2024.

Looking forward to the next year, I assume more CAN FD devices (sensors, actuators, human-machine interfaces, and host controllers) for non-automotive applications. Of course, carmakers will continue to migrate from CAN CC (classic) to CAN FD (flexible data-rate) networks. Increasingly, they will apply CAN SIC (signal improvement capability) transceivers. Additionally, CiA has started to specify 3,3-V transceivers, which can be mixed with traditional 5-V transceivers in the same network. CiA members have established a related SIG chaired by Texas Instruments. The parent group is the IG (interest group) lower layers.

The year comes to its end. CiA closes as usual the office between Christmas and the new year. On January 2, the CiA continues to serve the CAN community. On behalf of the CiA board of directors and the CiA staff, I wish you peaceful days between the years.