OBD-II-Based Vehicle Management Over GPRS Wireless Network for Fleet Monitoring and Fleet Maintenance Management

Abstract

The method of extracting parameters of the engine, electronics, body and power of commercially manufactured vehicles using On-Board Diagnostic version 2 (OBD-II) has been widely used. Important parameters from the vehicles are extracted using standard protocols. General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) is an ‘always on’ data service, and it is a part of Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) cellular phone and always on when GMS service is on. With GPRS, a computer connects to the Internet via the wireless network as long as there is GSM network. A computer with a Bluetooth® connects to Bluetooth OBD-II onboard a vehicle. The data extraction; P for powertrain (engine and transmission), B for body, C for chassis, and U for the network; uses AT command in the RS-232 connection. A computer processes the data and then transmits the data to a data center via GPRS wireless network using SIM808. This system uses GPRS because the data is small and the ‘always on’ feature. Data received by the data center is processed and stored in MYSQL format for further use and display with a web browser. An operator with a web browser can monitor the vehicle parameters and later remedial actions (maintenance or management) if necessary.