Objectives of FlexRay

FlexRay was introduced to provide a communication system targeting specifically the needs of the
high-speed control applications in the vehicle domain.

Typical applications of this domain like advanced

power train systems, chassis electronics, or by-wire

To that end, FlexRay aims at providing a best-of-both-worlds approach by

Integrating the event-driven and time-driven paradigm into a common protocol, to
simultaneously offer both communication schemes
Supporting the scalability of the ratio between the time-driven and eventdriven parts of
the communication
In the extreme case, FlexRay can be basically used as either a purely time-driven or
a purely event-driven communication scheme; in practice, a mixture of both communication
mechanisms is used.

FlexRay offers support to increase the reliability of communication by fail-safe mechanisms.

FlexRay Communication : -

The exchange of information between nodes in a FlexRay cluster is based on a time division multiple
access (TDMA) scheme and organized in communication cycles, which are periodically executed from
the startup of the network until its shutdown.
One communication cycle is subdivided into time slots, in which the information transfer from one
sender to one or more receivers takes place.
The schedule of a FlexRay cluster determines in which time slots the FlexRay nodes are allowed to
send their so-called frames.

Frame Format
FlexRay frame consists of three segments: the header, the payload, and the trailer.