Controller Area Network (CAN) Stack Improvement: BeagleBone Black D-CAN Driver Implementation

This project implements a D-CAN driver for the AM335x controller on the BeagleBone Black and integrates it into the RTEMS CAN stack, addressing the current lack of CAN support for this widely used embedded platform. This enables RTEMS applications to access CAN communication through standard interfaces such as /dev/canX. The main challenge lies in bridging the mismatch between the mailbox-based D-CAN hardware architecture and the queue-based abstraction used in RTEMS. To address this, the driver will introduce a mapping layer that emulates FIFO-based reception using hardware message objects and implements a software-managed, priority-aware transmission mechanism. Synchronization will be carefully handled through IFx register access and interrupt management to ensure correctness and real-time behavior. The implementation will follow an incremental approach, starting with a minimal working driver (initialization, polling-based TX, FIFO RX), and then extending to interrupt-driven operation, improved mailbox utilization, and priority-aware scheduling. Validation will be performed on real hardware using loopback and cross-platform communication tests (RTEMS ↔ Linux). Deliverables include a fully functional and maintainable D-CAN driver integrated into RTEMS, along with documentation, test demonstrations, and validation results. This work will also serve as a reference for future CAN driver development within the RTEMS ecosystem.