What Is the XCP Protocol?

The XCP protocol is commonly used in the automotive industry to measure and calibrate electronic control units (ECUs). Specifically, engineers use it to read measurement data and write parameters to ECUs during development, testing, and in-vehicle calibration.

The XCP protocol specification is defined by ASAM (Association for Standardization of Automation and Measuring Systems), and is an evolution of CCP (CAN calibration protocol). One notable difference is that the XCP specification allows for a variety of transport layers such as XCP over CAN, XCP over FlexRay, and XCP over Ethernet.

The following are common tasks that can be accomplished using XCP protocol over Control Area Network (CAN):

• Communicate with ECUs using DAQ and STIM lists
• View available ECU measurements and events using A2L files
• Test control algorithms on ECUs in bypass mode

For more information, see MATLAB^®, Simulink^®, and Vehicle Network Toolbox™.