Supporting emissions testing with HBM SoMat
Fleet emissions testing was conducted across approximately thirty trucks. Each vehicle required engineers to collect separate engine performance and NOx emissions data. The data, including vehicle CAN messages, were collected using twelve mobile, rugged HBM SoMat eDAQlite data acquisition systems. At the same time, a second group of test vehicles used an additional full-sized eDAQ to measure truck acceleration and deceleration levels.
The modular, Ethernet-based HBM SoMat eDAQ is expressly designed for high-reliability in extreme environments. It provides onboard data processing, triggering, intelligent data storage, and complex computations within a single, sealed, standalone system. eDAQ provides up to 96 analog measurement channels, synchronous data (parallel), and sample rates of up to 100 kHz. A diverse range of signal conditioning is available to support analog, strain gauge, thermocouple, digital I/O, pulse counter, GPS and vehicle bus inputs. The system is also designed to be fully mobile, with 10-60 VDC input power and a 20G rated enclosure. It correlates physical data, vehicle bus messages, and GPS data to provide a highly accurate test snapshot. It is also fully scalable, with capability to seamlessly network multiple eDAQ systems for an infinite number of synchronous channels.
The eDAQlite, a more compact version of the eDAQ, provides 32 analog channels and the same high-performance specifications as its larger-channel counterpart. This version offers a sufficiently small footprint for ease of installation into space-constrained environments. Both systems incorporate a modular architecture, building from a main processor layer (the ECPU-PLUS for the eDAQ and the ELCPU for the eDAQlite). Other layers may be added at customer discretion to accommodate specific sensor inputs, digital I/O and vehicle network communications.
Within this application, the eDAQ and eDAQlite units allowed the customer to incrementally assess and adjust the performance of its NOx emissions control products. This dual approach netted a great deal of high-quality test data. However, the need remained for an easier transfer of onboard recorded data to local PCs for analysis and reporting.
Achieving a 93% reduction in data collection time
Implementation of the HBM solution, comprised of SoMat data acquisition systems; nCode software; a secondary custom automatic data download program; remote wireless data transmission capabilities; and automated workflows proved highly effective in streamlining fleet vehicle data collection.
What had once been a fifteen-hour process was now less than a one-hour task across all thirty trucks, without sacrificing data quality and quantity. This represents a 93% tangible time reduction over prior methods. Efficiencies achieved by this solution further allowed the HBM customer to reallocate engineering resources away from data management, toward additional refinements of its NOx SCR emissions control products.
The newly created additional engineering resource also served to potentially improve customer product time-to-market metrics. For HBM, it offers the dual benefit of introducing a complete, field-proven, streamlined measurement solution to address the stringent requirements of heavy truck fleet vehicle emissions testing.