Kayak is an application for CAN bus diagnosis and monitoring. Its main goals are a simple interface and platform independence. Kayak is implemented in pure Java and has no platform specific dependencies. It includes a complete CAN bus abstraction model that can be included in other applications that need do handle CAN frames. This is possible because Socket CAN and TCP/IP are used as an abstraction layer above the CAN controller hardware. The socketcand provides the bridge between the Socket CAN device on a linux machine and the TCP/IP socket of Kayak. Existing .dbc files with CAN message specifications can be converted into the Kayak .kcd format using CANBabel. Afterwards Kayak is able to decode CAN frames and to display and interpret the messages and signals. To build Kayak follow the instructions in BUILD.md

You can find some basic documentation here.

• abstract bus, receiver, sender - model
• .kcd bus description format, see CANBabel
• project and log file management
• simple raw view of CAN frames
• sending of single and repetitive CAN frames
• creation and replay of log files

Because a kayak is a small, lightweight and versatile boat compared to a canoe.