Originating in the car and heavy-duty truck industry in the United States, it is now widely used in other parts of the world.
Originally, Controller Area Network (CAN) was not mentioned in J1939, which covered cars and tractor-trailer rigs, and with some dual and triple use 8-bit addresses assigned by the SAE J1939 board.
[citation needed] SAE J1939 defines five layers in the seven-layer OSI network model, and this includes the Controller Area Network (CAN) ISO 11898 specification (using only the 29-bit/"extended" identifier) for the physical and data-link layers.
J1939 attempts to define standard PGNs to encompass a wide range of automotive, agricultural, marine and off-road vehicle purposes.
Consequently, SAE J1939 can now be found in a range of diesel-powered applications: vehicles (on- and off-road and rail), marine propulsion, power generation and industrial pumping.