A system for monitoring electric utility vehicle operating data over the cellular network

A project was undertaken recently to develop a system that could acquire and log electrical and mechanical data corresponding to various operating cycles of an electric vehicle drive system, and then transmit that data to an off-site computer. The project team first identified which electrical and mechanical quantities were of interest to the sponsoring company and then developed the design requirements for each main function of this system: sensing, data logging, and data transmission. This was followed by the team's use of the weighted decision matrix approach to determine which of the available choices for performing each function was the best one. Testing of each component and of the integrated system was performed, and the results indicated that this system met the project's objectives.