In addition to use in cars and commercial vehicles as well as in mobile systems of all types (e.g. public transport vehicles, elevators, ships, trains, special-purpose vehicles, airplanes etc.), CAN is being used increasingly in industrial automation technology and in a large number of embedded systems in various fields of application - from coffee machines to kidney stone lithotripters. Based on the standardized higher protocols and profiles CANopen and DeviceNet, complete solutions for the implementation of distributed applications are available for system implementation.

In addition, standardized communication mechanisms, identifier assignment, network management functions and numerous device and application profiles enable interoperability and exchangeability of devices from different manufacturers. In addition to the implementation of very low-cost system solutions, CAN-based networks have a series of special features compared to other system solutions