Abstract
Keywords - Telematics, Bluetooth, Remote Diagnostics, Automotive Gateway, Communication Systems
Abstract - The increase of smart systems using wireless technologies has been spectacular during the last years. In automotive applications, the bigger increase in these technologies is related to telematics and location systems.
One of the possibilities having an increase interest is the application of wireless technology for diagnostics. Test engineering solutions, including in-circuit testing, functional testing and end-of line testing, can be implemented using Bluetooth (BT) 2.45 GHz wireless technology. This is due to the characteristic of BT protocol that permits to different modules to communicate each other when the distance among them is less than 10 meters.
One of the applied research lines at the European Technological Center of Lear Corp. is focused in the integration of BT wireless technology with the whole car hierarchical communications system. BT acts as a gateway between the car network and the exterior world. BT can be integrated into one of the modules in the car due to the actual facilities of integration given by several off- the-shelf products.
The module selected to integrate BT in the car has a strategic placement inside the car: the overhead module. This module integrates the remote keyless entry and other RF services, and communicates with the rest of the modules within the vehicle by CAN.
The module can communicate with an external PDA (in this case) or any other system (as a computer) which has a BT link card. The PDA is used as human machine interface (HMI). The overhead core is based on a 32-bit microcontroller. The internal diagnostic is sent to the overhead by CAN from the main electronic modules. The overhead unpacks the CAN frames and sends this information to the PDA using the BT protocol.
The PDA provides an easy, cheap and clever way to show the diagnostics (and other functionality of the car) for the test. This Diagnostic system can be very interesting for the whole life car test. It is easy to check and handle and can be even done remotely through GSM standard technology.