Abstract: A control system based on CAN bus was designed to meet the real-time，reliable performance requirement of the high speed air-jet weaving machine．Modularization design idea is adopted．The control system consists of the main controller module, the electronic let-off/take-up module, human-machine interface module and a number of sensor components. Chips having CAN communication interface become cores of these modules．It makes the functional module be a CAN node in the CAN network．And the modules exchange data by CAN network．The result of the control system running indicated that it could meet the high speed requirement, and realize fast, reliable control, and easy maintainability．