SAE J1939

17 January 2019 11:57 AM

• vehicle bus recommended practice used for communication and diagnostics among vehicle
components
• physical layer defined in ISO 11898
• defines five layers in the seven-layer OSI network model
○ Uses CAN 2.0B for physical and datalink layers
• All J1939 packets, except for the request packet, contain eight bytes of data and a standard
header which contains an index called Parameter Group Number (PGN), which is embedded in the
message's 29-bit identifier
○ A PGN identifies a message's function and associated data
• Characteristics
○ Extended CAN identifier (29 bit)
○ Bit rate 250 kbit/s
○ Peer-to-peer and broadcast communication
○ Transport protocols for up to 1785 data bytes
○ Network management
○ Definition of parameter groups for commercial vehicles and others
○ Manufacturer specific parameter groups are supported
○ Diagnostics features

Parameter Groups
• Parameter Groups - set of parameters belonging to the same topic and sharing the same
transmission rate
○ length of a parameter group is not limited to the length of a CAN frame
○ minimum length of 8 bytes up to 1785 bytes
○ more than 8 bytes require a transport protocol for transmission
• CAN identifier of a J1939 message contains Parameter Group Number (PGN), source address,
priority, data page bit, extended data page bit and a target address (only for a peer-to-peer PG)
○ PDU format < 240 (peer-to-peer) - Specific PGNs
○ PDU format >= 240 (broadcast) - Global PGNs

Protocols Page 1