A remote vehicle health monitoring system: a case study of the kayoola electric vehicles

Abstract

Due to their complex hardware and software, vehicle systems are challenging to monitor and maintain. As a result, the absence of proper vehicle health monitoring systems leads to several issues, including resource waste, costly maintenance, and frequent breakdowns. Therefore, vehicle manufacturers and owners must prioritize implementing such systems to mitigate these negative outcomes. This project report focuses on a remote vehicle health monitoring system explicitly developed for Kiira Motors Corporation's (KMC's) electric vehicles made in Uganda. This research project involved interpreting real-time data transmitted through the vehicle's Controller Area Network (CAN) into a human-readable format using the developed embedded device and a web application to notify technical operators of the vehicle's health status remotely. The system consists of a wireless link between the embedded device and the web application and has been integrated into Kiira EV, one of KMC's concept vehicles. This embedded device is attached to the vehicles’ CAN data hub through CAN-high and CAN-low communication lines to receive live data through electric signals generated by various sensors located throughout the vehicle. The developed system was integrated into the Kiira EV, and five critical vehicle parameters, including pack voltage, motor temperature, motor speed, pack current, and vehicle location, were remotely monitored using the developed web application. The developed system enables the technical vehicle operator to remotely track, monitor, and receive notifications on the general health status of the Kiira EV based on the streamed live CAN data.