Development of an On-board unit for the monitoring and management of an electric fleet

In this paper an on-board unit for the monitoring and management of a small electric fleet is presented. The device includes a communication module and allows to provide data about the vehicles, sending information coming from various sensors to a remote server. Besides locating vehicles on a map and showing their real-time status, the device can also explore the functions of subsystems including energy modules, cells, and powertrain in Electric Vehicles (EV) by showing the instantaneous data and even trend charts. When an error occurs, the system will come with warning and maintenance suggestions; the control center may send short messages to the driver and system data are available for download for advanced engineering analysis. The system foresees a web application and data can be accessed anywhere and anytime thanks to a browser application and a database developed on purpose. The device has been initially tested on a laboratory available vehicle and it will be subsequently installed on the municipal fleet of electric vehicles and boats operating on the small island of Ventotene in Italy in order to investigate the behavior of the main components. The paper illustrates the main hardware characteristics of the system and provides some experimental results. © 2012 IEEE.