Latest Trends in Data Recording and Analysis

Latest Trends in Data Recording and Analysis

Pranav Raj

ETAS Automotive India Pvt. Ltd.

David Gary Hickman

ETAS GmbH

ABSTRACT

The automotive industry trends are to reduce the amount of vehicle testing required by measure more data during existing tests, and to analyse the data to calibrate or validate other functions. In some case, the OEMs measure all data from the ECU. This leads to increased measure file sizes, and larger files to analyse. To help collect the data, there is an increased use of in vehicle data loggers like the ES720 drive recorder from ETAS. The drive recorder can be contacted anywhere in the world, in order to download and to upload new recording configurations or recover measure data.With the increasing pressures on OEM there is requisite to reduce the time and cost of new vehicle development, efficient measure data collection and analysis are becoming further important. Data validation is also playing equal role in building the complete test more prolific. Data validation can be achieved either manually or automatically. Manual validation is done with tools like MDA (Measure Data Analyzer), but requires a lot of manual effort which takes time and is susceptible to errors. Many vendors offer tools to automate measure file analysis, for example ETAS offer INCA FLOW and MOOGLE, These increase the speed the data can be analyzed, as well as reducing measurement errors.

This paper describes the entire process involved in data record validation, from hardware and software set ups to data analysis. The paper will also present the challenges that industry is facing and the latest solutions to overcome such challenge. This includes the measure all ECU data solutions, the latest measure modules for measuring analog and digital signals external from the ECU and the new ETAS ES820 drive recorder.

INTRODUCTION

The automotive Industry needs more and more data for calibration and validation. With the increase time and cost pressures and the new emission standards the OEMs are trying to mine as much data as possible from limited test vehicle trails from several locations. Fleet validation is crucial for them to benchmark, improve the functionality and also optimize overall performance. The data that are been collected requires a very reliable and robust system in order to avoid more number of repetition thus saving time and money. Here comes the role of the driverecorder to collect, update and transfer the data. The driverecorder needs to be programmed and should be connected with the other acquisition setup to acquire continuous data from external sensor as well as from the ECU. This operation should be genuinely unmanned and without the use of pc/laptop onboard.

NEED FOR DRIVERECORDERs

Driverecorders are one of the essential components required for automated data recording, synchronizing connected hardware, display error warnings and to transfer the data for post processing.Engineers needs to program the driverecorder and then complete setup can be carried onto the vehicle for data logging. Driverecorders are also preferred in place of PC/Laptop in order to have unmanned operation, recording buffer length and avoid loose connection. ETAS offers the ES720, a driverecorder for fleet validation purposes. The devices are being used to acquire data in different conditions across the globe. The ES720 is an embedded XP based system with INCA and other sequential driver running on top of it. There are multiple applications and features that will be discussed in the later part of the paper.

ES720 DRIVERECORDER FEATURES

ETAS ES720 is preferred tool for fleet validation among the OEMs and it has following features.

High performance, huge data storage capabilities, compact size
100% INCA compatibility (use existing experiment from INCA pc)
Fast start of recording (CAN monitoring ~100 ms, ECU access 10 sec)
Multiple Power Management options for Startup and Shutdown
Full suitable for automotive application (5 – 32V, -40 … 70°C)
Remote Data transfer (FTP)
PC based system
Standard PC Interfaces (USB, Eth, VGA) and Standard operating System (WinXP)
Basic I/O functionality integrated
Extendable via USB (Storage Extension, UMTS, GSM, GPRS)
Integrated in ETAS Tool Chain
Scalable with ETAS Modules (Open for Third-Party Integrations)
Supports Multiple Recorders
Supports external triggers and no mechanical moving parts inside
Notification via sms or email
Support Sequencing of different Experiments
Diagnostic Data Support via ODX

APPLICATION USECASE

ES720 captures data coming from the various sources viz., Measurement module, ECU (CAN, LIN, and ETK) and other peripheral components. A general setup for the use case has been discussed in details with schematics as shown in Fig 3. ES720 acts as master and other measurement modules and ECU are connected to it through the interface device called ES592 (2 ETH, 2 CAN/LIN, 1 ETK). ES592 is again from ETAS for interfacing multiple device and collects synchronous time stamped data. As a feature of driverecorder it also support additional GPS mouse to provide location on the global and it is also helpful in offline road profile. The measurement modules are connected in Daisy chain network and single cable will provide the Ethernet and power supply to consecutive device. Additional power supply (using special cable) can be provided whenever there is demand of more power. Sensors are directly connected to the measurement module with the help of a suitable cable. Multiple ECUs can also be connected through the same interface device and signal from them can be individually selected in INCA experiment environment.

Generally the data is stored on the device on the internal compact flash memory, which can be extended using external storage drive. There are LED indicators on the device which represents various states like Device status, Errors, ETH/Wi-Fi and memory. User can further select whether they want to store data on the internal storage or external. INCA experiment is loaded inside the ES720 and data record start and stop condition can be set either Automatic or manually (using trigger box). The data will be continuously stored on the device and can be sent over to FTP if the device is connected to internet and similarly new configuration can be uploaded whenever required. The data transfer rate are totally dependent upon the network signal strength and varies from place to place. Trigger box also plays an important role and makes the complete handling process very easy and convenient.

MEASUREMENT SOLUTION - ES4xx Module

Acquiring signals from the vehicle is equally important as getting signals from the ECU for overall system validation. ES4xx measurement modules from ETAS is well suitable for automotive environments. ES4xx modules are designed for performing measurements in test vehicles. They can be installedin harsh environments near to the sensors, for example in the engine bay. The advantage is only a single Ethernet communication cable needs to be routed around the vehicle, and not the bulky sensor cables. In addition measurements near the signal source minimize errors due to interference and damping. The power supply is provided by the battery of the vehicle and the engineers normally connect and disconnect only the main network cable for using them. ES4xx modules are equipped with an automatic standby function which reduces the power consumption to a minimum level when the modules are not in use.

This operation mode is indicated by the integrated LED. Individual modules can be identified from stack of many modules using inbuilt INCA function “Find the device”. ES4xx modules are permanently monitoring network traffic as soon as an active network connection is established to an analyzing device - like computer, drive recorder etc. - the modules will automatically wake-up from standby and boot in order to be ready for measurement. The modules are recognizing not only network traffic during measurement, but also the regular pings, which are sent by default by the network adapter of analyzing devices in order to detect present network devices.

There are different measure modules available depending upon the physical parameter to be measured like temperature, pressure, flow, lambda etc... A big advantage of ETAS Ethernet-based ES4xx connection concept is that several devices can be connected together in a so called daisy chain.Ethernet based modules allow more data bandwidth. The device can be used standalone, with network hub or with a data logger. All the modules are IP67 certified which means they are dust and water proof. Modules are very rugged and tested under proper vibration and are capable to work in all situation. ETAS measurement modules have other advance features like small form factor and smart stacking concept, rugged, water, dust, and temperature proofed modules, scalable and easy to configure measuring setups, High data acquisition rate and open protocol (XCP-on-Ethernet).

Figure 4 ES4xx setup in engine compartment

The ES430 and ES432 modules support lambda measurement in combination with the Bosch LSU 4.9 and ADV-G (ES432) lambda oxygen sensor. Based on the sensor signals, ES430/ES432 not only provides the host system with digital measurements of l, but also 1/l, A/F, F/A, Ip and O2 simultaneously. In addition, one signal can be put out as analog voltage. The ES430/ES432 operates the sensor at constant temperature to ensure reliable measurement accuracy. To prevent damage or degradation of the sensor element, the ES430/ES432 provides for heating of the sensor even during standby mode.

DATA TRANSFER SOLUTIONs

In present situation customer uses ES720 to record the data and sends the data to the base station via ftp transfer and validate the data. In order to validate the data frequently time trigger can be used wherein a part of the recorded data are transferred to the base station and data can be validated. This helps to avoid the erroneous signals to be recorded over a long duration and the user is made aware of the error. There are also mechanisms built-in to avoid the loss of data in case of unsuccessful transfer, which is, the device will keep on searching till it establishes the connection again while maintaining the data record work in the background. Driverecorders also have facility to inform the user of the successful transfer of the data via email or text message. The data transfer facility helps to get the data on a daily basis and the same data can be used immediately without waiting for the vehicle to return to the base station.On a single driverecorder OBD data acquisition, EMS/BCU/TCU data, Lambda sensor and external sensors mounted on several points in the test vehicle can be measured. .

DATA TRANSFER OPTION

WIRELESS DATA TRANSFER

ES720 provides a build in W-LAN module for wireless data transfer.

− ES720 can integrate an UMTS stick for wireless data transfer via mobile phone network.

− ES720 connects to a company access point or to a public hotspots and uploads the collected data to a server.

− At the same time ES720 checks for a new configuration on the server and applies it for the next test run.

− Extendible for internal security standards

− Configurable via the Configuration Tool

USB DATA TRANSFER

Options for automatic data exchange with USB device

− As soon as a USB drive is attached exchange of experiments, measure data files, etc. starts

− Configurable via the Configuration Tool

MANUAL DATA TRANSFER

− Manual Data Transfer possible via the Configuration Tool (wired and wireless)

EXTENDED SOLUTION

We have discussed about the use case where we collect data from ES720 and use those data for pots-processing. As INCA is already installed on ES720 so we can take advantage of it and we can open INCA inside the driverecorder from any remote location on the globe and do calibration task as well. The solution that we are presenting here is an extended solution to the existing one and it requires a separate add on (needs to be installed on ES720 Device) for this operation. Setup requires commercial TeamViewer license on both the system i.e., on driverecorder and on the PC. User can access the driverecorder from anywhere in the globe and open INCA through Team Viewer and do measurement, calibration and diagnostics from remote location. All the safety related issues had been considered and addressed in order to avoid the accidental damage of any kind.

Figure 5 ES720 remote calibration

Future Measurement Trends

To reduce the test effort, and number of vehicles used for testing, OEMs and Tier1s want to get more out of the testing they are currently doing. This means measuring more data during existing tests, and analyzing the data to enable many functions to be calibrated and/or validated with one recording. To enable this, the requirements to measure more data out of the ECU leading to the Measure all solution. The amount of data that needs to be recorded depends on the ECU code and processor type, but with current powertrain ECUs in the region of 20Mbytes/s.

Figure 6 Measure all solution overview

The main premise is to read all the measure data out of the ECU. The amount of data that needs to be recorded depends on the ECU code and processor type, but with current powertrain ECUs in the region of 20Mbytes/s. This leads to a number of issues which will be discussed here.

ECU INTERFACE -´

An interface to the ECU processor is required to allow all the data to be measured. JTAG or Nexus do not have the required bandwidth to allow the necessary data to be transferred out, so an off chip trace is used. A new range of ETKs, the FETK (Fast ETK) have been developed, and the first implementation, the FETK-T (Trace), uses the AURORA interface on the Infineon processor range. It is intended that this FETK range will replace the existing ETKs over the next years.

Figure 7 FETK-T Microcontroller interface

Using the Aurora trace interface, the data can be transferred out of the microcontroller at over 300 Mbytes/s. The Measure RAM data is sent to the ETK and mirrored. The ETK then reads the individual measure data at the desired raster, then sends this to the ES891 interface device via Giga Byte Ethernet. The can send the measure data out at over 20Mbytes/s. The advantage of this arrangement is data at high measure rates can be read out of the ECU with very low impact on the microprocessor runtime. In addition, the devices themselves are small enough to be easily mounted in the ECU housing. Also measure data can be recorded immediately on ignition on, supporting the so called “cold start” use case.

INTERFACE TO PC

To connect the FETK to the PC, a new generation of interface modules have been developed, the ES8xx series. The ES8xx series is a stackable system that provides flexibility but with high measure performance. Initially the EX8xx series comprise of the ES891 and ES892 ECU interface, and the ES820 Drive Recorder solution will be released in 2016. Future modules will be added in the next few years.

Figure 8 ES8xx Family

The modules will be stackable, which means new functionality can be added by inserting new modules into the stack. Planned in the near future are a drive recorder and a real time emulation device for rapid prototyping use cases. The initial offering will be the ES891 and ES892 systems. The ES891 will offer FETK, a Gigabit Ethernet, CAN or CAN-FD; FlexRay and Lin interfaces. The ES892 the same but with an additional FETK interface.

One advantage of the ES89x ECU interface modules is that the connection to the PC is through a standardized XCP on Ethernet communication. This means the modules can be used with MC software tools other than INCA.