Real World Data Collection from Heavy Duty Vehicles 973247

The Vehicle Data Acquisition Project was started to fulfill a desire at Horton Vehicle Components, Inc., to know more about the actual environment in which our products live. Operating under the hood of over-the-road vehicles produces some of the most demanding environmental conditions for any product's survival. Although our products are extensively tested in the laboratory mounted on diesel engines, it is not the same as inside a vehicle's engine compartment. A vehicle moves, stops, starts, pulls hard, bounces on the highway, idles and goes through different climates--and can do this all in the same day. These conditions would be impractical to duplicate in the laboratory. Also, this data should be collected over periods of time, perhaps as long as a year on the same vehicle. By doing this on different vehicles, a database can be developed that would allow comparisons across different vehicles, different seasons, or the same seasons but different years. In the past, data was collected most often for specific problems or projects but not for general knowledge. Now, as Horton goes forward utilizing state-of-the-art technology, many parameters can be acquired at once and the data returned automatically. Typical data includes: water and air temperatures, air and refrigerant pressures, engine and fan rpm, vehicle location, speed, and altitude. Furthermore, this data is sent back using the nationwide cellular phone network. This paper will describe the system in detail and take a look at some of the results.