Experimental Simulation of a Real Mission for Identifying a Telematics-Based Diagnostic Model in Connected Light Commercial Vehicles

Remote monitoring of commercial vehicles is taking an increasingly central position in automotive companies, driven by the growth of the on-road freight transportation sector. Specifically, telematics devices are progressively gaining importance in keeping track of powertrain operability, performance, reliability, sustainability and maintainability. These systems enable real-time data collection and analysis, offering valuable support in resolving issues that may occur on the road. Moreover, the fault codes (Diagnostic Trouble Codes) that arise during actual road driving constitute fundamental information when combined with several engine parameters updated every second. This integration allows for a more accurate assessment of vehicle conditions, facilitating proactive maintenance strategies. The main goal is to deliver an even faster response for resolving sudden issues, thus minimizing vehicle downtime. High-resolution data transmission and failure event information facilitate the bench simulation of actual missions. This is typically conducted for an in-depth study of particular failure events. Precisely, a mission of the van Iveco Daily has been performed on the test bed to replicate a real issue that occurred on the road. Firstly, this allows an examination of whether the failure event is related to the type of mission performed by the vehicle: a detailed evaluation of the associated telematics data in order to develop an accurate procedure for fault assessment. Secondly, since the vast volume of data acquired during the tests, several signals have been generated from telematics data; not all ECU signals are transmitted through telematics devices due to both computational effort and privacy requirements. Therefore, when compared to the experimental ones, the reconstruction of diagnostics-related signals affected by the failure, including the mass of cumulated soot stored in the particle filter and the corresponding flow resistance, has demonstrated a good match.