Vehicle data management system with remote access to electronic control unit-internal states

The authors describe a vehicle data management system (VDMS) that provides vehicle manufacturers and suppliers with engineering feedback from the fleet in the field, and improves remote diagnosis capabilities. We outline how we implemented such a system as software components on top of the existing hardware infrastructure of a vehicle. The system is based on recording system states in electronic control units and then retrieving these data and configuring the system remotely using a wireless link to a CAN-TCP gateway node in the vehicle. We also outline the possibilities arising from the analysis of the data recorded in the vehicle, with emphasis on estimating technical lifetime and short-term prediction of faults (predictive diagnosis).