Development of a distributed electronic system for low-cost heavy-duty engine test bench

Test benches are important tools for the optimization and diagnosis of internal combustion engines. This paper presents the work done to develop a low-cost tech bench for heavy-duty engines, which uses an electromagnetic brake, to apply load to the engine, and a distributed electronic system for control and data acquisition. Signal noise contamination in test benches represents a problematic aspect of the engine testing. Moreover, a distributed control and monitoring electronic systems, allied with a Controller Area Network (CAN) communication bus for signal transmission, was used to mitigate and ultimately immunize signals from noise sources such as electric or electromagnetic fields. Overall, a heavy-duty test bench aiming the engines diagnostics was obtained, where all control and data acquisition is performed via an USB serial port, interfacing with two CAN bus networks, in a complete distributed control system.