Hardware and software approach for teaching automotive networks

All vehicles produced today must be fitted with an On-Board Diagnostic (OBD) interface. With the help of the OBD a data connection through the Controller Area Network (CAN) is realized with the Engine Control Unit (ECU). This control unit is instrumental in optimizing the engine performance. There are many OBD adapters on the market today, ranging from the cheap Do-It-Yourself kind to expensive, professional ones that can be used for telemetry data on racing cars. There is also a wide choice of software to interpret the data provided by the OBD, depending on platform and cost. A small review, which by no means is exhaustive, of available hardware and software needed to access this data is presented. Test results performed with compatible software using an ELM327 OBD II interface with WiFi capabilities on a Skoda Rapid model 2015 are given.