Aims

VMBD aims to develop model-based methods and techniques for practical operation in automotive diagnostics systems, both on-board and off-board. This will be achieved by implementing a prototype of an integrated environment (toolkit) and by demonstrating its feasibility and benefit by diagnosing real faults in real vehicles. The toolkit will allow car manufacturers and component suppliers to rapidly develop powerful diagnosis systems in their quest to achieve a 50% reduction in vehicle down times. This will give a competitive edge to European Automotive Industry, leading at the same time toward the development of European standards in the field of vehicle diagnostics.

Background

With the increasing complexity in cars comes the increasingly difficult task of diagnosing faults when problems occur. The 60 million cars circulating in the European Community require a total of over one billion hours of repair. This is not only uncomfortable for users but also brings about significant social costs. Furthermore, increased environmental awareness will put stricter constraints on the car manufacturers to develop clean cars and also keep them clean during their life cycle. The increased sophistication that goes along with these requirements is reflected in the entire process chain: from development to service bay.

To keep the customer satisfied it is necessary to find occurring faults in a timely and cost effective manner. To be competitive in a world market, it is necessary to standardise the diagnostic environment. In order to achieve all these objectives it is necessary to use the synergy of the car manufacturers, suppliers and workshop.

Developing an improved on-board diagnosis capability relies on understanding and incorporating, wherever possible, the evolving techniques and computer-based technology being used by the service bay technician. For it is in this domain where significant work has been carried out in developing and automating the processes for tracking symptoms to specific faults through the scheduling and application of strategic tests within the constraint of minimal cost fault finding.

There is a need to develop an integrated approach to the design, development and execution of off-board and on-board vehicle diagnostics. The field of off-board vehicle diagnosis is still maturing. The field of on-board vehicle diagnosis is presently limited to on-board diagnostics of some subsystems, e.g. ABS, Motronic or EDC, systems which announce their recognised faults mainly by signal bulbs. Until recently, the overall capability for on-board diagnosis has been relatively primitive. It is now capable of supporting and adopting advanced techniques used for off-board diagnosis. This integration will assure that cars will be less likely to spend time in the shop thus coming closer to the goal of total mobility. Prevention of break-down and on time maintenance will keep customer's satisfaction high and the environment free of vehicle generated hazards.