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The above figure is the home page of the VHMS (Vehicle Health Monitoring System).

Whenever the user switches on the system this Home page gets displayed on the HMI display
unit and the vehicle health computation gets started. It has an back button to navigate to previous
page and stop button to stop the process. Along with these it also has three buttons namely VHR,
priority tasks, DTC. The back ground VI is designed in such a way that whenever these buttons
ie., controls get activated, the execution jumps to their corresponding subVI and their respective
page gets displayed on the HMI display unit. The design and function of these subVI’s are
described below.
Whenever the Vehicle health report button gets activated (user touches VHR button on home
page) the above page gets displayed on the HMI display unit. This gives the complete status of
the vehicle and its parts. It displays the health of the important vehicular parts such as Engine,
Emissions, Transmissions, Suspensions and Replacements. The status of these vehicular parts is
divided into three states. Optimum state – it represents that the corresponding vehicular part is in
good condition and no replacement is required.

Needs servicing - it represents that the corresponding vehicular part is not in good condition and
some servicing or replacement is required. It alarms the user to make the vehicle checked in due
time.

Serious fault - it represents that the corresponding vehicular part is not in good condition and
immediate replacement is required for uninterrupted journey and safety of the user.

Each and every vehicular part status depends on several parameters and parts. Whenever these
controls or buttons gets activated, their corresponding VI gets executed and its page is displayed.
For example the status of the engine in VHR is not in optimum state. It represents that some part
or constituent of the engine is malfunctioning. To know, where the fault has been occurred, the
user has to click on the engine button which displays the above page. As shown in the above
figure the engine efficiency depends on several factors such as, engine temperature, engine load
value, throttle position, intake air temperature, and engine coolant temperature. Along with these
the fuel level indicator and RPM known as speedo meter is placed on this page. The status of
these indicators represents the status or functioning of those corresponding constituents or parts.

The pedal is a form of potentiometer circuit which controls the throttle position for fuel injection
according to the inlet air. For throttle position manipulation, the vehicle consists of an inbuilt
sensor which has three reference levels. The ECU produces voltage pulses by this sensor which
are received by this sub VI which indicates the position of the throttle.(if voltage equals to 1 then
the throttle is fully closed, if voltage equals to 5 then throttle is fully open, generally the voltage
varies between these values.

the intake air temperature, engine temperature, engine coolant temperature are continuously
monitored. They have some optimum values and the driver gets alarmed whenever these
temperature reaches the optimum values.
CO,NMHC,THC,NOx, HC+NOx, PM are the major constituents of the emissions in car.

These emissions should be in permissible limits, else they would cause harm to mankind. These
levels change from vehicles running on petrol to those running on diesel. An VI is build to
monitor these exhaust gases.
Petrol Diesel

CO 0.5 1

NMHC 0 0.1

THC 0 0.068

NOx 0.08 0.06

HC+NOx 0.17 0

PM 0.005 0.005

The above are the permissible levels of gases in emissions from a car according to a survey in
2008.

The exhaust consists of several gases, of this carbon monoxide is a toxic gas, and hence catalytic
converters are used to convert CO into CO2 to make it less harmful. Hence catalytic converter
status can be drawn from emissions.

Oxygen sensors are used to send feedback, so as to control the intake of air at the piston during
combustion. For generating feedback these sensors sense this emission levels. Hence oxygen
sensor’s status can be drawn from emissions.

Hence an VI is developed to detect weather the emissions are in permissible levels or not and
also the status of mufflers, catalytic converters, oxygen sensors are displayed on the HMI unit.
The transmissions and suspensions are the important factors for load sharing of the car. The major part of
the transmissions is Auto Transmission Fluid whose life or working efficiency varies on the distance
travelled and working temperature. Its level has to be maintained in optimum values else malfunction
appears in the vehicle. The fuel condition, oil temperature and fuel level are continuously monitored and
the user gets alarmed when they reaches the optimum values.

The suspensions are the one which shares the load of the car equally on the four wheels. If the road is
with heavy bumps, the effect of jumping or shaking is minimized by these springs used for suspension.
The spring rate, wheel rate and weight transfer have certain deviation values, and any overflow of these
deviation reduces the performance of the car, ie., engine efficiency gets affected.
There are several fluids in the car whose condition effects the car’s efficiency. Of those the
important fluids are Engine fluid, Air fluid, Oil filter, ATF, TX fluid and Brake pad fluid. All
these fluids life gets worsen depending on the distance travelled. More over some of the fluids
life time reduces to half on increase of every 20 degrees. Some fluids have minimum temperature
to be maintained and some others have maximum temperature, where driver has to be alarmed
whenever these temperatures had reached to their min or max values.

As the majority of the fluid life is estimated from the distance travelled, the distance is
calculated by taking the pulse wave from the VSS pin in the car. Four pulses represents one
rotation of the wheel and by multiplying it with pi* radius of wheel/2, we have the distance
travelled. The VI is designed in such a way that depending on the temperature the fluid is
operated, its life time or status is calculated and displayed.

As all fluids have different life times, a set of reset buttons are placed on the page so that, when
an fluid is replaced its distance count has been resetted to zero, where as the other fluids distance
values continue to be accumulated.
Diagnostic trouble codes are the one which makes VHR perfect. When a problem has occurred in
any of the components of the car the ECU produces trouble codes. These are in large numbers
and a VI is build such that the obtained trouble codes are decoded and a message is displayed on
the HMI unit.

All the computations are done by the values obtained from ECU through CAN bus. ECU
receives these values from the internal sensors. What if these internal sensors gets damaged? All
the computations go into flaw. This situation is eradicated by decoding these trouble codes.
When ever the internal sensors gets damaged, corresponding dtc is produced by ECU which is
decoded and displayed as an message and thus making VHR as an error less report.

There are nearly two to three thousands of trouble codes, of which we have taken 30
which are very important and had decoded them.

p0100, p0115, p0176, p0195, p0200, p0220 , p0230, p0261, p0300, p0320, p0335,
p0340, p0350, p0382, p0405, p0410, p0420, p0460, p0470, p0480, p0500, p0566, p0654,
p0700, p0703, p0704, p0725, p0730, p0740, p0745 are some of the trouble codes generated
in ECU.
For example if p0745 is generated,it means some error has been occurred in pressure
control solenoid.This trouble code is detected and a message will be displayed as “Pressure
Control Solenoid Malfunction” on the HMI display unit.

Prioritizing tasks is an extraordinary feature of Vehicle Health Monitoring system. It displays


tasks which need serious attention of the user which have to be attended or served first.
Whenever there are more than one problem ie.,more than one part of the car has to be replaced
then the prioritizing task’s helps the user and the work’s man who is servicing the car.

The prioritizing tasks VI prioritizes all the flaws in the car and displays them in order according
to their priority in descending order. Whenever the car is sent to servicing the work’s man click’s
on the prioritizing task’s control and replaces the malfunctioning parts according to their priority.
Thus making the VHMS user friendly.

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