Report ID
2007-07
Report Authors
Erik Peterson
Report Date
Abstract

All persons who interact with a vehicle (e.g. drivers, mechanics) require a unique set of data about its operation; diagnostics data. Drivers, for example, need to know that their cars are healthy and that they are not currently break- ing any traffic laws; mechanics, on the other hand, need to know the current operational state of numerous components in the car, as well as a history of the car’s performance, in order to do their jobs. Although the automotive industry has fully embraced the need for the "mass customization" of their vehicles, this trend does not extend to diagnostics displays. This leaves an open niche for third-party solutions. Unfortunately, the third-party solutions tend to be targeted at specific subsets of the problem and do not work in all cases. Our solution employs a wireless sensor network which results in a system which is integrated, customizable, low-cost, and non-intrusive. Wireless sensing nodes are small and are located close to the signals they are measuring. A base station aggregates the readings from the sensing nodes and then logs and displays them. We describe the design and implementation of the system and evaluate it, show- ing that ultimately it is a feasible solution for low-rate, non-critical automotive diagnostics.

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