While not a simple protocol, its speed, determinism, and fault tolerance enable by-wire, safety, and other features. Here is a rundown on FlexRay's design, function, and applications.

By Mathias Rausch, Freescale Semiconductor

FlexRay was born out of necessity. As automobile manufacturers began investigating new power train, chassis, and by-wire control systems, two companies in particular, BMW and DaimlerChrysler, realized that the current in-vehicle networking solutions did not meet their needs. They required a very fast, deterministic, and fault-tolerant protocol that could satisfy the speed, reliability, and safety requirements of such applications as brake-by-wire and steer-by-wire.

FlexRay speeds automotive safety applications (Full Article)