Vehicle Engine Vibration Monitoring System Using Real Time CAN

Abstract

Nowadays car manufacturers use either their own or pre-built commercially available vibration testing systems, to examine every part of the car from the seats to the engine. The cost of the vibration test systems is extremely high, and the automotive industries are very keen on the research and development of new cost-effective techniques with real time monitoring systems. Based upon these requirements, we have developed a preliminary prototype system for testing the vibration of the vehicle engine, based upon the use of a Controller Area Network (CAN) system. This system can be integrated efficiently into the present vehicles’ management network system. The system includes two micro controller-based boards with PIC18F4520 and ADXL335 chips. The first board has a two-axis acceleration sensor, which is mounted on a car engine for vibration testing, while the second board, communicates to the PC to simulate a car dashboard for controlling the system. The two boards communicate via the vehicle’s existing data communications network (CAN bus). These micro controller-based hardware devices are driven by programs written in the C programming language, while LabVIEW provides the user-control interface. This paper will present the methodology, design approach and results of the online monitoring system.