VEHICLE TELEMATICS SYSTEM USING GPRS

Phalake M. B. and Bhalerao D. M. Sinhgad College of Engineering / Mech-Mechatronics, Pune 41

phalakemb@gmail.com

Sinhgad College of Engineering / Electronics, Pune 41

dipashree_b@yahoo.com

Abstract Vehicle Telematics is a term used to define electric data

exchange between connected vehicles. Next generation

Telematics services demanding remote access to vehicle

operational data. A challenge with vehicles utilizing

complicated embedded systems is how to extract the

vehicle diagnostic data, evaluate it to expose possible

problems and determine how to fix any problems.

This paper describes a vehicle data acquisition system by

use of Embedded system places in vehicle and GPRS

connectivity. Large number of data can be transmitted

from the vehicle after collecting it from the ECU’s fitted

in the vehicle. This system is reliable and cost effective

also.

Keywords — Vehicle Telematics, Embedded Syatem,

GPRS

1 Introduction

Now a day’s vehicles are equipped with more

and more electronic gadgets. These Electronics

devices plays vital role in controlling engine

parameters (i.e. proper functioning of engine as

well as emissions parameters), safety, comfort,

navigation, entertainment and much more. Most

of these devices are connected to each other for

gathering information. Further these Electronic

modules provide a diagnostic network interface

through a In-Vehicle network protocols (such as

KWP2000, LIN and CAN) to read number of

parameters related to the engine and vehicle

body electrical and also monitor the Diagnostic

Trouble Codes (DTC’s). The DTC’s provide

valuable information on the faults and also the

sub system where the faults have occurred.

There is need of access of the data available in

vehicle for Vehicle parameters monitoring at the

time of vehicle testing (when vehicle is in

design stage), to monitor the vehicle to

diagnostic and resolve any problem detected

when vehicle is away from home place and from

security point of view also.

Earlier the testing vehicle (running on highway)

equipped with data loggers and other test

equipments were able to give collected data

only when that will come back to

office. And hence there were chance of data

loss. Hence repeated testing was required in

some cases.

To solve all these problems we have designed a

system by help of an embedded system along

with GPRS modem and vehicle electrical and

electronics systems to give cost effective

solution to collect correct and large number of

data.

Hence test engineer can access the Vehicle Data

by using GPRS Embedded Web server fitted in

the vehicle. Using this technique the vehicle test

engineers / owners are able to access vehicle

operational and diagnostic data remotely as well

as control certain parameters / systems from any

place in the world, because this data is available

on internet.

2. Overview and Related Work

Basically Telemetics [1] has meant the blending

of telecommunications and informatics. Vehicle

Telematics deals with exchange of data from

vehicle collected from vehicle networks and

used for vehicle tracking, vehicle monitoring,

and toll collection and for number of things.

Phalake M. B, Bhalerao D. M, Int. J. Comp. Tech. Appl., Vol 2 (1), 132-135 ISSN : 2229-6093

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There are no of systems available for remote

diagnostics of data like a remote on-line

diagnostic system for vehicles via the use of In

vehicle networking, On-Board Diagnostic

(OBD), and GPS [1] [2] [3] [4].

While there are some systems which use GSM

for monitoring the vehicle data by using the

SMS service for sending data from vehicle [5].

Here in 1st case (OBD and GPS) the data

transmission will be costlier as well as it may be

redundant. In second case (by using SMS) also

chance of loosing necessary of data because of

longer data transmission rate and small size of

messages, and the data transmission will be

costlier if we require continuous monitoring of

vehicle.

3. System Architecture

The use of GPRS [6] is well known to every

body and almost all service providers on GSM

are giving this service. Hence it is very much

easy to be getting connected to the Internet

world. And the OBD system are available in

almost all new generation vehicle as the

electronics devices are getting increased in

today’s vehicle.

Hence if we will get use of these two then it

may be possible to get the necessary data with

less cost and in proper format for vehicle

monitoring.

Hence the System architecture as shown in the

Figure 1 is basically showing the basic systems

from vehicle i.e. EMS (Engine Monitoring

System), Body Electrical System, and ABS-SRS

(Anti-locking breaking system and

Supplemental Restraint System). These systems

are connected in either of communication lines

available in the vehicle for In-vehicle

networking (i.e. K-line, LIN or CAN).

Figure 1: System Architecture

Also the Microcontroller board is nothing but an

embedded system capable to collect data from

said ECU’s and to communicate it further to

GPRS modem [7] for further data transmission.

3.1 Vehicle Connectivity

The system is currently suitable for K-Line

(KWP 2000) connection currently. The

embedded system equipped with

microcontroller will work on vehicle battery ant

it will be properly mounted in vehicle with

necessary network connections. The

connections will be through the Kline

connector. As soon as system gets powered, it

monitors the vehicle network and starts fetching

the latest values of the pre-configured

parameters and the DTC’s from the vehicle

network.

Here the communication will be established first

by enabling the respective device. Then the

fixed command will be used for data exchange

between this embedded device and any or all of

the ECU’s from vehicle.

3.2 GPRS Connectivity

The GPRS connectivity is achieved by using

GPRS modem based on Siemens MC55 Module

is used. The MC55 wireless modules are the

Internet

User / Test

Engineer

EMS

Body

Elect

ABS-

SRS

Microcon

troller

Board

GPRS

Modem

with

TCPIP

Stack

Embedded System

K line / LIN / CAN

communication

RS 232

Veh

icle

Sy

stem

s

Phalake M. B, Bhalerao D. M, Int. J. Comp. Tech. Appl., Vol 2 (1), 132-135 ISSN : 2229-6093

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smallest double tri-band modules on the market

today. This module covers all of the

GSM/GPRS networks that exist across the

world - and subsequently enable you to

exchange any data in specific format. GPRS

enabled mobile SIM card to be placed in the

adapter provided in Modem. The embedded

client implements AT Commands [7] to

communicate to the mobile devices. The fixed

IP address is configured in the modem and after

establishing communication with the internet

continuous data will be transferred to that

particular IP address by this modem.

3.3 Software:

The software in the embedded system is suitable

for:

1. Communication with vehicle network

2. Communicate with the Modem

Date

Time

EMS System DTCs

Body Ele System DTCs

ABS Sensor DTCs

UCL Tmp (o C)

Fuel Level (L)

Immobiliser status

Break Oil

1/11/10

8:12:35

125 556 NA 35

65

OFF HI

1/11/10

8:20:00

125 556 NA 70

64

OFF HI

Table 1: Data collected on server machine

For Communication with the vehicle networks

the k line (KWP 2000) protocol is used. The

software for physical, data link and application

layer is written in the embedded system. Here

first the necessary devices are enabled for

communication and then the data exchange

starts. The data will be collected after fixed

interval of 500msec from the devices.

While collecting this data the embedded system

is busy with connecting to the GPRS by using

AT commands. Here the network will be

established with the fixed IP address configured

in the modem.

When the proper connection is established, the

data collected from the ECU’s is transmitted in

packets with fixed interval of time.

This data further collected or received at the

said IP address location where one dynamic

page of internet is running. This data collected

on excel file and will be used for further

analysis by the test engineer as shown in table1.

4. Future Work

This work can be explored to LIN and CAN

networks in future. Also we can explore the

system for two way communication to correct

the fault codes detected from the vehicle by

increasing capabilities of microcontroller to

store large number of data. The commands can

be provided from internet to the Embedded Web

Server that can be built at the vehicle using

inbuilt TCPIP stack of the Modem /

microcontroller.

5. Conclusion

This system is designed for vehicle diagnostics

from remote location and vehicle performance

monitoring point of view. But this system can

be used for wide variety of applications like:

Phalake M. B, Bhalerao D. M, Int. J. Comp. Tech. Appl., Vol 2 (1), 132-135 ISSN : 2229-6093

134

Vehicle Security

Emergence services

Fleet management

Advertisement in the vehicle using LED

display

Remote fault finding / Troubleshooting

Currently this system supports GPRS and can be

extended to 3G technologies for faster and more

detailed data transfer. It can be extended to any

other Vehicle protocols. This concept can be

realized into small portable hardware that can

be mounted to any automotive vehicle to enable

remote access. This can extended to have a GPS

(Global Positioning System) so that all vehicle

parameters including vehicle location can be

monitored remotely. This system can be

extended to provide service support remotely.

6. References

[1] K. Y. Cho, C. H. Bae, Y. Chu And M. W.

Suh, “Overview Of Telematics: A System

Architecture Approach”, International

Journal of Automotive Technology, Vol. 7,

No. 4, pp. 509−517 (2006)

[2] William Jenkins, Ron Lewis, Georgios

Lazarou, Joseph Picone and Zachary

Rowland, “Real-Time Vehicle Performance

Monitoring Using Wireless Networking”,

Human and Systems Engineering, Center for

Advanced Vehicular Systems, Mississippi

State University, 200 Research Blvd.,

Mississippi State, Mississippi 39759, USA

[3] I. Aris1, M.F. Zakaria2, S.M. Abdullah1 and

R.M Sidek1, “Development Of Obd-II

Driver Information System”, International

Journal of Engineering and Technology,

Vol. 4, No. 2, 2007, pp. 253-259

[4] Jyong Lin, Shih-Chang Chen, Yu-Tsen

Shih, and Shi-Huang Chen, “A Study on

Remote On-Line Diagnostic System for

Vehicles by Integrating the Technology of

OBD, GPS, and 3G”, World Academy of

Science, Engineering and Technology 56

2009

[5] Vinayak S. Kumbar, Sneha Bharadwaj,

Nagalaxmi B.V, Abhijeet Prem Jetly,

“Cellular Based Remote Vehicle Data

Access”

[6] Christian Bettstetter, Hans-Jörg Vögel, And

Jörg Eberspächer, “Gsm Phase 2+ General

Packet Radio Service Gprs: Architecture,

Protocols, And Air Interface”, IEEE

Communications Surveys, Third Quarter

1999, vol. 2 no. 3

[7] Siemens Cellular Engine, “MC55 AT

Command Set”, Version: 02.06 Date:

November 12, 2004 DocId:

MC55_ATC_V02.06

Phalake M. B, Bhalerao D. M, Int. J. Comp. Tech. Appl., Vol 2 (1), 132-135 ISSN : 2229-6093

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