Volvo Construction Equipment (CE)

Taking account of the customer's driving behavior

Although Volvo CE uses its own experienced test drivers to test the vehicles to the limit on its own test track, longer-term testing is also carried out under the customer's normal day-to-day conditions. "We do this as a way of verifying our own test facilities but also to find out more about different driving behavior," explains Lennart Skogh. Customer testing is based on an eDAQ installed in the customer's cab with a direct CAN bus link so it can obtain a range of readings from the vehicle components. We can process the data back at base because the eDAQ is connected by modem. That way, we can switch the system off and on and schedule various short tests." Lennart Skogh predicts that field testing will become even more important in future. "Data simulations are all very well but it is only when we test for real that we can be sure we get the right information about how our machines behave in different situations. Understanding how our customers drive is becoming increasingly important in product development, so I'm convinced we'll see even more field measurements in future," he says.

Keeping track

It can be a challenge to keep track of the thousands of measurements. According to Volvo CE, one of the strengths of eDAQ is that each test setup is saved in the measured data file. This means that the data and the setup can be used to recreate an identical test in future using the same calibration values, or to verify that the calibration values were correct if there was an unexpected result.

HBM SoMat eDAQ rugged mobile data acquisition system