Phalake M. B, Bhalerao D. M, Int. J. Comp. Tech. Appl.
, Vol 2 (1), 132-135 ISSN : 2229-6093
VEHICLE TELEMATICS SYSTEM USING GPRS
Phalake M. B. and Bhalerao D. M.
Sinhgad College of Engineering / Mech-Mechatronics, Pune 41
phalakemb@gmail.com
Sinhgad College of Engineering / Electronics, Pune 41
dipashree_b@yahoo.com
Abstract
Vehicle Telematics is a term used to define electric data
exchange between connected vehicles. Next generation
Telematics services demanding remote access to vehicle
operational data. A challenge with vehicles utilizing
complicated embedded systems is how to extract the
vehicle diagnostic data, evaluate it to expose possible
problems and determine how to fix any problems.
This paper describes a vehicle data acquisition system by
use of Embedded system places in vehicle and GPRS
connectivity. Large number of data can be transmitted
from the vehicle after collecting it from the ECU’s fitted
in the vehicle. This system is reliable and cost effective
also.
Keywords — Vehicle Telematics, Embedded Syatem,
GPRS
1 Introduction
Now a day’s vehicles are equipped with more
and more electronic gadgets. These Electronics
devices plays vital role in controlling engine
parameters (i.e. proper functioning of engine as
well as emissions parameters), safety, comfort,
navigation, entertainment and much more. Most
of these devices are connected to each other for
gathering information. Further these Electronic
modules provide a diagnostic network interface
through a In-Vehicle network protocols (such as
KWP2000, LIN and CAN) to read number of
parameters related to the engine and vehicle
body electrical and also monitor the Diagnostic
Trouble Codes (DTC’s). The DTC’s provide
valuable information on the faults and also the
sub system where the faults have occurred.
There is need of access of the data available in
vehicle for Vehicle parameters monitoring at the
time of vehicle testing (when vehicle is in
design stage), to monitor the vehicle to
diagnostic and resolve any problem detected
when vehicle is away from home place and from
security point of view also.
Earlier the testing vehicle (running on highway)
equipped with data loggers and other test
equipments were able to give collected data
only when that will come back to
office. And hence there were chance of data
loss. Hence repeated testing was required in
some cases.
To solve all these problems we have designed a
system by help of an embedded system along
with GPRS modem and vehicle electrical and
electronics systems to give cost effective
solution to collect correct and large number of
data.
Hence test engineer can access the Vehicle Data
by using GPRS Embedded Web server fitted in
the vehicle. Using this technique the vehicle test
engineers / owners are able to access vehicle
operational and diagnostic data remotely as well
as control certain parameters / systems from any
place in the world, because this data is available
on internet.
2. Overview and Related Work
Basically Telemetics [1] has meant the blending
of telecommunications and informatics. Vehicle
Telematics deals with exchange of data from
vehicle collected from vehicle networks and
used for vehicle tracking, vehicle monitoring,
and toll collection and for number of things.
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 Phalake M. B, Bhalerao D. M, Int. J. Comp. Tech. Appl., Vol 2 (1), 132-135 ISSN : 2229-6093

There are no of systems available for remote

diagnostics of data like a remote on-line Internet
diagnostic system for vehicles via the use of In K line / LIN / CAN
vehicle networking, On-Board Diagnostic communication

(OBD), and GPS [1] [2] [3] [4]. EMS RS 232

While there are some systems which use GSM

Vehicle Systems
for monitoring the vehicle data by using the Body Microcon
GPRS
Modem
SMS service for sending data from vehicle [5]. Elect troller
Board
with User / Test
TCPIP Engineer
Here in 1st case (OBD and GPS) the data Stack
ABS-
transmission will be costlier as well as it may be SRS
redundant. In second case (by using SMS) also Embedded System
chance of loosing necessary of data because of
longer data transmission rate and small size of
messages, and the data transmission will be
Figure 1: System Architecture
costlier if we require continuous monitoring of
vehicle.
Also the Microcontroller board is nothing but an
embedded system capable to collect data from
3. System Architecture
said ECU’s and to communicate it further to
GPRS modem [7] for further data transmission.
The use of GPRS [6] is well known to every
body and almost all service providers on GSM
3.1 Vehicle Connectivity
are giving this service. Hence it is very much
easy to be getting connected to the Internet
The system is currently suitable for K-Line
world. And the OBD system are available in
(KWP 2000) connection currently. The
almost all new generation vehicle as the
embedded system equipped with
electronics devices are getting increased in
microcontroller will work on vehicle battery ant
today’s vehicle.
it will be properly mounted in vehicle with
Hence if we will get use of these two then it
necessary network connections. The
may be possible to get the necessary data with
connections will be through the Kline
less cost and in proper format for vehicle
connector. As soon as system gets powered, it
monitoring.
monitors the vehicle network and starts fetching
Hence the System architecture as shown in the
the latest values of the pre-configured
Figure 1 is basically showing the basic systems
parameters and the DTC’s from the vehicle
from vehicle i.e. EMS (Engine Monitoring
network.
System), Body Electrical System, and ABS-SRS
Here the communication will be established first
(Anti-locking breaking system and
by enabling the respective device. Then the
Supplemental Restraint System). These systems
fixed command will be used for data exchange
are connected in either of communication lines
between this embedded device and any or all of
available in the vehicle for In-vehicle
the ECU’s from vehicle.
networking (i.e. K-line, LIN or CAN).
3.2 GPRS Connectivity

The GPRS connectivity is achieved by using

GPRS modem based on Siemens MC55 Module
is used. The MC55 wireless modules are the

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 Phalake M. B, Bhalerao D. M, Int. J. Comp. Tech. Appl., Vol 2 (1), 132-135 ISSN : 2229-6093

smallest double tri-band modules on the market

today. This module covers all of the
GSM/GPRS networks that exist across the
world - and subsequently enable you to Table 1: Data collected on server machine
exchange any data in specific format. GPRS
enabled mobile SIM card to be placed in the For Communication with the vehicle networks
adapter provided in Modem. The embedded the k line (KWP 2000) protocol is used. The
client implements AT Commands [7] to software for physical, data link and application
communicate to the mobile devices. The fixed layer is written in the embedded system. Here
IP address is configured in the modem and after first the necessary devices are enabled for
establishing communication with the internet communication and then the data exchange
continuous data will be transferred to that starts. The data will be collected after fixed
particular IP address by this modem. interval of 500msec from the devices.
While collecting this data the embedded system
3.3 Software: is busy with connecting to the GPRS by using
AT commands. Here the network will be
The software in the embedded system is suitable established with the fixed IP address configured
for: in the modem.
1. Communication with vehicle network When the proper connection is established, the
2. Communicate with the Modem data collected from the ECU’s is transmitted in
packets with fixed interval of time.
E F Im This data further collected or received at the
M u m said IP address location where one dynamic
S Bod UC el ob page of internet is running. This data collected
Sy y AB L L ili on excel file and will be used for further
st Ele S T e se analysis by the test engineer as shown in table1.
e Syst Sen m v r Br
D Ti m em sor p el st ea 4. Future Work
at m DT DTC DT (o (L at k
e e Cs s Cs C) ) us Oil This work can be explored to LIN and CAN
1 networks in future. Also we can explore the
/ system for two way communication to correct
1 8 the fault codes detected from the vehicle by
1 :1 increasing capabilities of microcontroller to
/ 2: store large number of data. The commands can
1 3 12 6 O be provided from internet to the Embedded Web
0 5 5 556 NA 35 5 FF HI Server that can be built at the vehicle using
1 inbuilt TCPIP stack of the Modem /
/ microcontroller.
1 8
1 :2 5. Conclusion
/ 0:
1 0 12 6 O This system is designed for vehicle diagnostics
0 0 5 556 NA 70 4 FF HI from remote location and vehicle performance
monitoring point of view. But this system can
be used for wide variety of applications like:

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 Phalake M. B, Bhalerao D. M, Int. J. Comp. Tech. Appl., Vol 2 (1), 132-135 ISSN : 2229-6093

 Vehicle Security [5] Vinayak S. Kumbar, Sneha Bharadwaj,

 Emergence services
 Fleet management
 Advertisement in the vehicle using LED
display
 Remote fault finding / Troubleshooting
Currently this system supports GPRS and can be
extended to 3G technologies for faster and more
detailed data transfer. It can be extended to any
other Vehicle protocols. This concept can be
realized into small portable hardware that can
be mounted to any automotive vehicle to enable
remote access. This can extended to have a GPS
(Global Positioning System) so that all vehicle
parameters including vehicle location can be
monitored remotely. This system can be
extended to provide service support remotely.
Nagalaxmi B.V, Abhijeet Prem Jetly,
“Cellular Based Remote Vehicle Data
Access”
[6] Christian Bettstetter, Hans-Jörg Vögel, And
Jörg Eberspächer, “Gsm Phase 2+ General
Packet Radio Service Gprs: Architecture,
Protocols, And Air Interface”, IEEE
Communications Surveys, Third Quarter
1999, vol. 2 no. 3
[7] Siemens Cellular Engine, “MC55 AT
Command Set”, Version: 02.06 Date:
November 12, 2004 DocId:
MC55_ATC_V02.06

6. References

[1] K. Y. Cho, C. H. Bae, Y. Chu And M. W.

Suh, “Overview Of Telematics: A System
Architecture Approach”, International
Journal of Automotive Technology, Vol. 7,
No. 4, pp. 509−517 (2006)
[2] William Jenkins, Ron Lewis, Georgios
Lazarou, Joseph Picone and Zachary
Rowland, “Real-Time Vehicle Performance
Monitoring Using Wireless Networking”,
Human and Systems Engineering, Center for
Advanced Vehicular Systems, Mississippi
State University, 200 Research Blvd.,
Mississippi State, Mississippi 39759, USA
[3] I. Aris1, M.F. Zakaria2, S.M. Abdullah1 and
R.M Sidek1, “Development Of Obd-II
Driver Information System”, International
Journal of Engineering and Technology,
Vol. 4, No. 2, 2007, pp. 253-259
[4] Jyong Lin, Shih-Chang Chen, Yu-Tsen
Shih, and Shi-Huang Chen, “A Study on
Remote On-Line Diagnostic System for
Vehicles by Integrating the Technology of
OBD, GPS, and 3G”, World Academy of
Science, Engineering and Technology 56
2009

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