NMEA 2000

NMEA 2000

NMEA 2000 uses CAN (Control Area Network) as the physical transport layer. CAN is a simple vehicle network dedicated to transfer single (or small) data sets in the network.

Basicly NMEA 2000 is a low-cost serial data network operating at 250 kbits/second utilizing the Controller Area Network (CAN) integrated circuits and protocol. CAN was originally developed for the cars by Bosch, and now is used in numerous industrial applications and produced by dozens of IC manufacturers.

The key difference, apart from the obvious one of the operating speed, is that NMEA 0183 is a set of interfaces and NMEA 2000 is a network. The NMEA 2000 needs also it's own protocol.