Editing your Protocol Data Units in a Network

The PDU Editor gives you an overview of all PDUs that are part of the project and any relevant information about them. This editor makes it possible to view and configure the following components of your project:

  1. PDUs, as part of channels and modules

  2. PDU Groups

  3. Routing Paths

  4. Gateway Buffers

To open the editor, do the following:

  1. Expand the Communications tab in the navigation bar in DaVinci Configurator

  2. Click on PDUs

  3. The PDU editor opens with its tree view, which is assumed to be open in this documentation

View PDUs

PDUs are the basic packets that are sent between ECUs on a network. All available PDUs in your project can be found by expanding the PDUs container in the tree view of the PDU editor. The PDUs are grouped by modules and channels, and you can see those as sub-containers that appear beneath PDUs: Modules and Channels.

Viewing PDUs Provided by Modules

Expand Modules and then expand any module container that appear. A number of PDU Configuration containers will appear beneath it. Clicking on a PDU Configuration will show you a list of all PDUs in the selected configuration, along with parameters for each, such as their name and length. It is also possible to expand a PDU Configuration to see all individual PDUs contained in it.

Clicking on a module container under Modules will show a detailed list of all PDUs provided by it.

Viewing PDUs in Channels

Expand Channels (in the expanded PDUs container) and a number of channels will appear. Expand any channel, and then pay attention to the sub-containers called Rx PDUs and Tx PDUs. Expanding Rx PDUs will show you a number of PDUs that are received as part of the selected channel, while expanding Tx PDUs will show you a number of PDUs that are sent as part of it. Clicking on Rx PDUs or Tx PDUs will open a window that shows a list of all PDUs that are either sent (Tx PDUs) or received (Rx PDUs) (just like when viewing the configurations in the modules container, described above).

Viewing PDUs as graphs

When clicking on a PDU as described above (either as part of a module or channel), you can view the PDU in graph mode by clicking on Show Graph in the top-right corner of the PDU configuration window. To return to the configuration mode, click on Show Config next to the Show Graph button.

Manage PDUs in Channels

Clicking on a channel (as described in "View PDUs") will open a window showing a detailed list of parameters for each PDU that is part of the channel. If you wish to only view receiving or sending PDUs, you can expand the selected channel and click on Rx PDUs (receiving) or Tx PDUs (sending), or expanding either of those two containers.

Editing PDUs

If you click on a PDU (which can be found as described in "View PDUs") as part of a module or channel, you can configure its parameters in the configuration window that appears. You can configure its routing here as well, by expanding the container for Routing, which lets you configure Related PDUs, Routing Paths and Routed PDUs by expanding those containers. All PDUs that are related to the sending/receiving PDU selected will appear as expandable containers in this window as well, which show various configuration parameters that can be edited for the selected PDU.

Configure and Organize PDU Groups

A PDU group is a grouping of several different PDUs which can be used to configure them all at the same time. If they have certain parameters that are shared, you can view those PDU groups in the PDU editor and collectively change parameters for them.

To view PDU groups, expand the PDU Groups container in the PDU editor. A list of PDU groups will appear, and you can click on any of them to open a window that lets you view and edit metadata associated with them. Expanding a PDU group will show two sub-containers: PDUs and PDU Groups. Expanding PDUs will show you a list of all individual PDUs that are part of the selected PDU group. To view any PDU groups that are nested in the selected group, click the PDU Groups container.

Define Source-to-Destination Paths

Routing paths determine which destination PDUs are possible for a given set of PDU sources.

To add a new routing path, do the following:

  1. Right-click on Routing Paths.

  2. Click on Add.

  3. In the new window that appears, select your "Global PDU" and "Module PDU"

  4. In the window below "Destination PDUs", click on the plus (+) sign

  5. A new destination PDU will be added, you can configure it by clicking on it

  6. You can click on the plus sign and repeat the procedure to add more destination PDUs

To duplicate a destination PDU in a routing path:

  1. Select a routing path under Routing Paths.

  2. Select one or several paths in the "Destination PDUs" window, by either:

    1. Clicking on a PDU

    2. Click on a PDU and then Shift-Click on another to select them both, and any PDUs in between

    3. Hold Ctrl while clicking on individual PDUs in the list

  3. Press the duplicate button (double plus (++) sign to the left of the destination PDUs list)

Clicking on any existing routing path in the list of routing paths will show you the same configuration parameters in a new window as when you created a new routing path. These parameters can be modified as well.

Add Gateway Buffer Settings

Gateway buffers temporarily store forwarded PDUs as they are being transported between interfaces. There are two types of gateway buffers: TP Gateway Buffers and IF Gateway Buffers.

To view the TP and IF gateway buffers, expand the Gateway Buffers container in the PDU editor. By expanding either the TP Gateway Buffers or IF Gateway Buffers that appear, you can see the corresponding gateway buffers. It is possible to duplicate those by right-clicking any of those gateway buffers and pressing "Duplicate", which will open a new window that asks for how many duplicates you want. Clicking on any gateway buffer under TP Gateway Buffers or IF Gateway Buffers will open a new window containing the configuration of the selected buffer, which can be edited as well.