CAN provides the ability to function in difficult electrical environments, a high degree of real time capability and ease of use. The real time capabilities are supported by extremely short arbitration times in the range of microseconds, limited data length and extremely short error recovery times, again, in the range of microseconds.
The reliability and error resistance of CAN has been calculated in a mathematical model. Here is an example using the following parameters and conditions:
- 1 Bit error every 0.7 sec
- Baud rate of 500 kBit/sec
- Operation of 8 hours/day and 365 days/year
According to the mathematical model, the Residual Error Probability will be 1 undetected error in 1000 years. (Source: CAN-in-Automation)