Self-monitoring vehicles
Vehicle breakdowns usually come as unwelcome surprises. A worst case scenario would be long delays waiting for roadside mechanics, followed by a tow and further delays when the right parts are unavailable. For commercial operators, downtime means lost business. The 'Maintenance on demand' (MODE) project proposed a better model. With EUR 3.7 million in EU funding, the 10-member consortium ran from September 2009 to December 2012. The project's concept was that vehicle systems should monitor themselves. A vehicle would notify its owner when it needed either routine or unscheduled maintenance. The alert would include specific information about the problem, allowing the required parts to be assembled in advance of a maintenance stop. Such a maintenance concept would greatly minimise maintenance downtime, ensuring more uptime of commercial vehicles than currently possible. The concept would also pre-empt most unplanned breakdowns, while allowing an optimal part replacement schedule with reduced long-term costs. Maintenance service providers could also offer tailored service contracts that optimise maintenance schedules for individual vehicles. The MODE project's main goals were to develop the technologies necessary to facilitate vehicular self-monitoring. The technologies included wireless sensor networks, algorithms for condition monitoring and remaining-life assessment, and telematic systems to communicate the system report to a central system. MODE's on-board data management system was successfully completed using the existing Volvo Telematics Gateway and was validated by field testing as fully functional. The project also completed the data transfer system, which it demonstrated when using vehicle data for monitoring and scheduling maintenance. The project completed its database platform. High-level integration tests demonstrated the database's ability to acquire, process and retrieve both vehicle-reported and computed data. MODE abandoned its initial proposal for a web interface following unsatisfactory testing. Instead, the project embedded third-party computerisation units into MODE-compliant software modules. Finally, the project integrated and validated its systems via realistic test cases. MODE's work will help to avoid breakdowns and minimise vehicle downtime, improving the competitiveness of vehicle-dependent businesses. In addition, MODE's maintenance concept will keep more vehicles in better condition, resulting in environmental and safety benefits.