CAN Message Generator

Description

This program was made by and for the Solar Car Team at UVA. This program generates simulated CAN Messages.

Installation

1. Clone this repo onto your machine
2. cd into the project folder
3. Create a python virtual environment (py -m venv .venv) and activate it (.\.venv\Scripts\activate)
   • you may need to use python or python3 instead of py
   • on Mac, run source ./.venv/bin/activate to activate the virtual environment
4. Install cantools (pip install cantools)
5. Add the CAN Messages submodule by running git submodule update --init --recursive

Use

Setting up the Config file

A JSON file must be created. It contains a dictionary (outer dictionary) of dictionaries (inner dictionaries). The keys to the outer dictionary are CAN message names (like ECUMotorCommands); its value is an inner dictionary. The inner dictionary contains key-value pairs for signals of the CAN message and their value (like "throttle": 25). Signals left undefined will be assumed to be 0.

The value of a signal will be re-evaluated for every message generated. The value can be dynamically set by using a python expression in a string for a signal's value; the expression can contain these elements:

1. math package functions.
2. random package functions (random was imported as rand)
3. i, which is the iteration number of the current message

See config_example.json for an example.

Running the Program

After completing the steps in Installation, run py main.py path number

• replace path with the path of the Config JSON file
• replace number with the number of messages to be created; can use scientific notation (like 1e3)
• the output is stored in out.txt