A new CAN-like field network based on a star topology

Because of the particular medium access technique they adopt, Controller Area Networks (CAN) suffer from an intrinsic drawback which severely limits the maximum bus length allowed at high bit rates.
In this paper, a new proposal is presented, which is based on a star topology and enables to enlarge the CAN network extension more than 10 times or, equivalently, to increase the bit rate of the same factor. In the proposed scheme, a star coupler takes part actively in the arbitration phase by disabling on-the-fly all the nodes which lose the contention, so that the increased propagation delays can be dealt with properly.
The new mechanism shows a behaviour that is very similar to CAN, thus a reasonable degree of compatibility with the original protocol and the technology of the existing devices can be preserved.