On-Board Diagnostics in Engine Management Systems for Motorcycles 2005-32-0103

Today's engine management systems (EMS) for automobiles provide advanced capabilities for on-board diagnostics (OBD), primarily designed to satisfy legal requirements for monitoring of emission relevant components, but also in order to facilitate maintenance. The paper describes the present situation of gradual introduction of EMS to motorcycles, and takes a look on the past introduction of such systems to automobiles, eventually leading to legal requirements regarding OBD. The status of motorcycle OBD legislation in Europe is reported. Taking M7.4.4 as an example - an EMS system for power sports applications - an advanced OBD system based on automotive technology with a reduced functional set is described. For a low-cost motorcycle EMS system, an approach of scaling down automobile OBD technology is not feasible because of a lack in technical resources in the electronic control unit (ECU) but also because of different market requirements. Therefore, a motorcycle specific, basic OBD system for the MSE2.0 low-cost motorcycle EMS has been developed. Features described include fault detection functions, storage of fault information and information output for maintenance purposes by tester or blink code.