Sensors & Transducers, Vol. 164, Issue 2, February 2014, pp.

100-106

Sensors & Transducers

© 2014 by IFSA Publishing, S. L.
http://www.sensorsportal.com

Development of an On-board Diagnostics System

Based on Wireless Network
1
Guosheng FENG, 2 Bo FENG, 1 Sumei JIA, 1 Lisha FENG
1
Shijiazhuang Tiedao University, Shijiazhuang, 050043, China
2
Hebei Construction Investment Group Railway Co. Ltd, 050080, China
Tel.: 13102828580
E-mail: [email protected]

Received: 28 November 2014 /Accepted: 28 January 2014 /Published: 28 February 2014

Abstract: In order to control vehicle exhaust emission effectively, an OBD is developed based on Zigbee
technology. Overall solution design of the system is proposed and the vehicle-mounted monitoring database is
established. The wireless network communication hardware platform is set up by the MC9S08GT60
microcontroller and the MC13192 wireless module. The project document is produced with the help of BeeKit
wireless connectivity toolkit. Under the CodeWarrior IDE development environment, the monitoring station
coordinator networking program and the vehicle-mounted terminal device networking program are designed.
Experimental results shows that this system complete data exchange between the monitoring station coordinator
and the vehicle-mounted terminal device and transfer data into monitoring station computer. The wireless
network of OBD is realized. Copyright © 2014 IFSA Publishing, S. L.

Keywords: Automobile, OBD, Wireless network, ZigBee, MC13192.

1. Introduction Through wireless cellular communication,

satellite communication or Global Positioning
With the increase of vehicle population, the System, OBD III system which takes advantage of
automobile exhaust emissions have become one of the small-vehicle wireless transceiver system, can
the main factors causing air pollution. In order to automatically give the management department some
control vehicle exhaust emission pollution according information including Vehicle identification number
to the law, the major automobile manufacturers have VIN, fault codes and location information. On the
equipped their cars with OBD diagnostic system. The vehicle emission level, the administrative
system is used in the mid-90s, which has strict departments issued a directive including where to
emissions pertinence and its essence is to monitor accept the maintenance time limits of solving the
vehicle emissions [1]. Though OBD-II diagnoses emissions problem and so on. On the basis of the
some emission-related fault, it cannot guarantee the relevant laws and regulations these information will
driver to accept the warning of fault indicator MIL issue the punishment of forbidding operation for the
(Malfunction Indictor Lamp) and timely repair the cars which cause excessive emissions of pollution
vehicle failure [2-3]. A new generation of OBD because of improper maintenance, and also it can
systems-The OBD-III is produced, which is featured lead to punishment to the offenders. OBD-III not
with the wireless transmission of fault information. only requires related communications technologies,

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 Sensors & Transducers, Vol. 164, Issue 2, February 2014, pp. 100-106

standards and regulations, it also proposes a higher network coordinator (Full Function Device FFD).The
demand on the accuracy and reliability of the OBD vehicle (Reduced Function Device RFD) is a sensor
system diagnostic functions, now OBD-III is still in node with transceiver function. Through the license
development stage. plate number, these nodes correspond to other
This paper develops the vehicle-mounted information of the vehicle uniquely. When the RFD
diagnostic OBD system based on ZigBee technology, into the coverage of FFD local area network, FFD
comes up with the overall solution design of the collects RFD vehicle diagnostic information and it
system, establishes a monitoring station database, will be transmitted to database of monitor station
complete the system's hardware and software design , computer through the serial port and to monitoring
Preliminary realizes OBD system of wireless center computer finally for completing the on-board
network, and provides the reference for domestic car emissions monitoring and management [4-7].
OBD - III system development. Systems network architecture shown in Fig. 1.
The system consists of the OBD self-diagnostic
system and emissions monitoring system. The
prototype of the OBD self-diagnostic system is the
2. System Project Design OBD-II system which completes the diagnosis of car
emission-related parts. The emission monitoring
In order to design the wireless transceiver system system is the network of OBD system which
which uses ZigBee technology, monitoring stations completes the automatic collecting and processing of
on the vital communication line and crossings was set diagnostic parameters of the vehicle OBD system
up and every station will be equipped with a ZigBee under the unsupervised mode.

Fig. 1. Systems network architecture.

3. Monitoring Station Database information management, vehicle information

management, vehicle owner information
Stations computer can read the vehicles archives management, monitoring records management,
information (Vehicle VIN, License plate number, illegal vehicle management, monitoring information
Owners, etc), fault code, etc which are stored in the query [10].
database. Through the analysis of the fault code, To realize its function, the corresponding logical
stations computer can give emission level, instruction structure was established as shown in Table 1.
of maintenance advice and maintenance time limit, For the realization of data revision and query, first
etc, and issues fines and banned driving commands to the relationship between data table was set up, among
the vehicle which are beyond maintenance time limit. them those were correlated that data tables of the
First the monitoring station database was established vehicle information management, the owner
base on the Access database management system. information management, the illegal vehicle
Then the database was operated using LabVIEW management and the monitoring records management
database toolkit. Finally the LabVIEW program for with primary key "license plate number" field. At the
creating forms, adding records and deleting records same time, the data table of illegal vehicle
in the database were designed. management and the data table of monitoring records
management were correlated with "transit time" field.
The data table of monitoring station information
3.1. Establish Database
management and the data table of monitoring records
The function of vehicle-mounted monitoring management were done with "monitoring station
database mainly includes: Monitoring station numbers".

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Table 1. Vehicle information management table logical structure.

Field name Field explanation Data type Field size note

VehicleID License plate number text 8 Major key
VehicleType Vehicle type text 4 —
BuyTime Purchase time date/time — date
Purchase compel
BuyComInsu logic 2 —
Insurance
AnnualInsp Annual inspection logic 2 —

3.2. Database Operation Procedure 4. System Hardware Design

In order to realize operation database used the
LabVIEW database toolkit, the database will be Overall design of the hardware platform between
connected. The method of DSN (Data Source Names) the vehicle terminal and the station coordinator in the
was used for connecting the database to establish the wireless network OBD system is shown in Fig. 4.
program code as shown in Fig. 2. After database is Connected with sensors by single-wire,
connected, such as create a form, adds records, delete MC9S08GT60 is the core of the entire hardware
records, inquire the records, close window in platform, and is responsible for collecting the signals
database were carried out, the program code of generated by each sensor and also complete A / D
adding records as shown in Fig. 3. conversion, data processing operations.

Fig. 2. The program code of connecting database.

Fig. 3. The program code of adding records.

It communicates with the MC13192 through the display of data and program download, debugging,
SPI bus, completing data transceiver and control and other operations, Vehicle terminal completes
information exchange. radio frequency communication with the coordination
It is connected with the PC through the RS232 through two MC13192, uploading data and issuing
serial port and the BDM interface, completing the control directive.

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4 SPI lines, an IRQ interrupt request line and

3 Control lines, as shown in Fig. 5.

Fig. 5. MC9S08GT60 and the MC13192 interface circuit.

Fig. 4. Overall design of the hardware platform.

4.2. MC13192 RF Circuit
4.1. The Interface Circuit Between
MC9S08GT60 and MC13192 RF circuit is composed by the signal receiving
circuit, the signal transmission circuit and crystal
Since both MC9S08GT60 and MC13192 are from oscillator circuit, shown in Fig. 6.
Freescale, and the interfaces are relatively simple:

Fig. 6. MC13192 RF circuit.

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Pin1 and pin2 are signal receiving ends, leading coordinator, and then issue a request to enter the
to the signal receiving circuit; pin 5 and pin6 are the network, having received the response of the
signal sender, leading to the signal sending circuit. coordinator, it will send their own 64-bit physical
Chip is connected to an external 16 MHz crystal to address to the coordinator, and after that the
form a crystal oscillator circuit, providing the clock coordinator will allocate short address according to
signal to the chip. the receiving order of the physical address of the
The role of the antenna is very important in terminal equipment. At that time, terminal equipment
wireless communication systems. The MC13192 network is successfully connected. After that,
works at 2.4 GHz and uses balanced monopole terminal equipment will send the information such as
antenna or the inverted-F antenna. In this paper, the license plate number, vehicle VIN, and whether the
inverted-F antenna is used and it is embedded emissions are beyond the standard to the coordinator.
directly on the PCB, low cost and good effect. With the vehicle gradually leaving the stations, the
signal of the coordinator gradually decreases, and
finally vehicle exits from the network. Vehicle
5. System Software Design terminal equipment’ network design flow chart is
shown in Fig. 8.
Because MC9S08GT60 read and write MC13192
register through the 4-wire SPI interface, it is needed
to design the SPI communication [11], and later 5.3. Program Design of Receiving and
design the procedure of short distance wireless
Dispatching Oxygen Sensor
communication between the coordinator and vehicle-
mounted terminal, completing the exchange of data Voltage Signal
between coordination and vehicle terminal, and
transmitting data via the serial port to a monitoring Oxygen sensor is ternary catalytic system
station computer. components, but also the key sensor that OBD system
to test for, and an important change for national III
emission standard is equipped with the oxygen
5.1. Program Design of the Stations sensor, so as to better monitor transformation
Coordinator efficiency of the catalytic converter systems. Oxygen
sensor output voltage signal collection mainly
The main task of the stations coordinator is to includes four parts: A/D conversion, interrupt
establish a network and receive the information of the handling, SCI serial port to send, LabVIEW serial
vehicle terminal. When coordinator is powered on, it storage data read [11]. To realize an A/D module's
first needs to initialize ZigBee protocol stack, and collecotion voltage, we can call function
then network management requires the MAC layer to getVoltage(), based on the wireless transceiver
complete the energy scan of the 16 channel, and to processes written in the Zigbee2004 protocol stack as
detect whether there are other ZigBee networks in the shown in Fig. 9.
channels specified by coordinator, and finally select
the appropriate channel based on the results of the
scan. Then it is needed to select the PAN identifier, 6. System Experiment
ensuring that there is no conflict between the selected
PAN identifier and other PAN identifier which is in We set a piece of MC9S08GT60 and
the same channel. After the PAN identifier is chosen, MC13192SARD plate on the laboratory and a car
it is needed to select the network coordinator’ 16 which is 100 meters away from laboratory, do
short address; at last the coordinator can be started, experiment of coordinator and the vehicle-mounted
and begins to receive the connection request of the terminal of dispatch and receipt of monitoring station
vehicle terminal equipment, realizing the sending and database information and coordinator receiving
receiving of the data through CSMA/CA algorithm. oxygen sensor voltage signal.
Stations coordinator network design’ flow chart is
shown in Fig. 7.
6.1. Database Information Experiment
5.2. Program Design of the Vehicle in Monitoring Station
Terminal Equipment
The 9 voltage power supply was adopted in two
There are two main tasks about the vehicle pieces of MC13192 SARD. One of them work as the
terminal equipment: firstly, find the network and join coordinator, the other piece work as vehicle terminal,
the network, secondly, send vehicle’s information to the RS232 serial line link with the two PC
the coordinator. When the vehicle terminal go respectively, and the coordinator procedures and
through the monitoring station, vehicle terminal vehicle-mounted terminal program were downloaded
equipment will scan the channel to find stations to the two boards with BDM emulator.

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Fig. 7. Stations coordination network Fig. 8. Vehicle terminal equipment network

design process. design process.

Fig. 9. Zigbee wireless transceiver process.

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First of all power on the coordinator, and transition from OBD II to the OBD III. It completes
secondly the terminal nodes and experimental results the exchange of data between the monitoring station
will be shown in the SSCOM 3.2 serial debugging coordination and vehicle terminal, and sends the data
tools. Serial port sets as follows: Port is the COM 4- to the monitoring station through the serial port,
port, Baud rate is 57600, data bit is 8, stop bit is 1, no preliminarily realizing the wireless the OBD system.
parity and no flow control. Coordinator starts the
network and receives the data. Vehicle terminal joins
the network and sends the data. The physical address Acknowledgement
of the coordinator is 0xFFFFFFFFFFFFFF01, PAN This project was supported by the National
identifier is 0x00001347, the channel is 0x14; The Nature Science Fund of China (Grant No. 11272220).
physical address of the vehicle terminal is
0xFFFFFFFFFFFFFF02, short address is 0x1699, the
data to be sent including: plate number VehicleID is References
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