Automotive
Telediagnostics is a multidisciplinary
field, composed of Telematics and Diagnostics. It refers to the ability to
read, correlate, analyze and transmit real-time information regarding vehicles,
its mechanical status, location, safety and other relevant data.
The major beneficiaries
of telediagnostics systems are fleet owners that can improve safety,
performance, saving and efficiency of their vehicles.
Telematics:
In-car connectivity
devices are taking care of Location Based Services and infotainment
systems. Such devices are featured with GPS antennas and SIM operated cellular
modems.
Diagnostics:
At the old times we
could detect faulty engine valve by it sound and a compression problem with
simple manometer.
Nowadays, with highly
sophisticated vehicles, all the monitoring is being done by numerous on-board
computers.
So once the technician
is connecting the diagnostics computer, he can easily understand the mechanical
status of the vehicle and its components. The data includes Diagnostics Trouble
Codes (DTC), last installed software versions and much more. The same computer
also resets the on-boards chips and upgrades the firmware.
Few of the leading
telematics providers, such as Traffilog are combining an in-depth
automotive engineering knowledge with complex algorithms capable of sorting all
the on-board data, analyze it and then create meaningful events and alerts,
delivered in real-time to the fleet owner, the security officer or maintenance
manager.
The recipients can take
an immediate action regarding the vehicle and the driver, such as to guide him
to the closest repair shop, to alert the driver on evolving problem or any
other measurement.
This fascinating field
is going to grab all commuters' attention. We foresee that the tendency of more
and more on-board devices, Machine to Machine (M2M) and Vehicle to
Infrastructure (V2I, V2X) will increase in the upcoming years, so the next
generation vehicles will communicate with each other and with the road signs,
re-route the trip to avoid traffic jams and collisions.
