The Future of Car Diagnostics: From Onboard to Remote Monitoring

 The way vehicles are diagnosed and the technology used to repair or replace faulty parts has seen significant changes in the past 30 or 40 years. But just how do cars diagnose problems today, compared with decades ago? Onboard vehicle test systems, relying on electrical signals emitted by parts upon failure, have evolved to provide increasingly accurate diagnoses. The future of car diagnostics is remote monitoring, where vehicles upload various measurements in real time to remote servers, mechanics and even owners.

 This article will look at how vehicle diagnostics have developed over the years, pay attention on how remote monitoring is transforming vehicle maintenance, and get a hint of what the future of automotive care could like. 

The Evolution of Car Diagnostics

1. The Early Days: Manual Inspections and Simple Tools

 For example, diagnosing the problems of early automobiles was an extremely manual process. Technicians had to crack open bonnets, rev engines, check coolants and fine-tune carburettors to troubleshoot problems. Like today’s mechanics hooking up computers to the onboard diagnostic systems in modern cars, it was a slow, often incomplete process that often had to resort to trial and error. Spotting issues before they caused critical failures was also nearly impossible, because subtle ‘smoking gun’ signals were hard to detect without specialised metrology tools.

2. The Introduction of Onboard Diagnostics (OBD)

 The first leap forward in automotive diagnostics was the Onboard Diagnostics (or OBD) systems, introduced in the 1980s and standardised in the 1990s with OBD-II. These allowed the vehicle to track and report on a variety of warp-feedback parameters. Problems in the engine, exhaust or emission systems could be detected and the Check Engine Light illuminated if something was awry.

 OBD-II systems standardised the set of codes that mechanics could see, rather than specific to a particular vehicle manufacturer. Now a mechanic could connect a scanner and learn that there’s a misfire on cylinder three, or that an oxygen sensor (or whatever) was wrong. Diagnostics could become much faster, and repairs far more accurate.

3. Enhanced Diagnostics in Modern Vehicles

 Today’s vehicles have onboard diagnostic systems loaded with thousands of lines of code, controlling the engine, sensors that send signals to advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), and electric or hybrid components. The car monitors a variety of items, including engine temperature, road speed, fuel efficiency, brake wear, tyre pressure and a number of other parameters. The vehicle then reports issues over the car’s infotainment system or through various dash lights.

 Yet the next big evolution in car diagnostics is making a beeline for the door. The rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) and connected car is giving rise to more proactive and remote diagnostics, which can give drivers and mechanics better information in real time, before the symptoms of a problem are even present.

The Rise of Remote Monitoring in Car Diagnostics

 This remote monitoring means that there’s no need for the car’s driver to bring his or her vehicle in to see a mechanic or dealership. Even the simplest of cars now send out diagnostic information, which then can be analysed on external servers. These servers not only analyse the information, they communicate with the car to recommend maintenance, repairs or actions that drivers must take at once.

1. Connected Car Technology and IoT

 At the heart of remote diagnostics is connected car technology. Thanks to widespread usage of cellular networks, the vast majority of cars made within the past decade and a half are now being fitted with telematics systems that enable vehicles to send and receive data about their various aspects, including where they are located, how they’re driven and how their engine is performing and responding to the road under normal driving conditions – in short about their ‘health’. By using the IoT, cars can now become part of a broader, connected world where they form part of numerous devices that are constantly monitored and analysed.

 Equipped with IoT diagnostics, a vehicle can alert a remote server to a likely issue so that complex software can analyse the data for patterns or aberrancies (eg, an overheating engine or deteriorating brake performance). This real-time diagnostic approach could also ensure that a fix or alert is sent in advance before a driver’s next ride. 

2. Benefits of Remote Diagnostics for Drivers

Remote diagnostics offer several significant advantages over traditional onboard diagnostics:

 Real-time monitoring: Using a remote diagnostics system, you can be informed in real time of the condition of the car, which will help you identify any issues early before it gets serious enough to have a breakdown and so you don’t have to make an unscheduled visit to the mechanic.

 Ounce of proactive maintenance: Planned maintenance based on mileage or time interval is suboptimal because wear is specific to the vehicle, driving conditions and how the car is used. By constantly measuring and collecting required performance metrics, a system can recommend specific parts replacement, for example, when a brake sensor detects excessive pad wear due to high heat generated while the brakes are applied.

 Improved safety: real-time diagnostics alert drivers to short-term safety hazards – low tyre pressure, brake failure, overheating parts, etc – enabling them to correct the problem before an accident.

 Convenience: remote diagnostics means that you can skip the mandatory trip to a mechanic every x months ‘just in case’ Because all mechanics have access to the records all the time, a plethora of problems can now be detected and dealt with remotely.

3. Benefits for Mechanics and Manufacturers

 Remote diagnostics benefit drivers, but they also come with several advantages for mechanics and manufacturers: 

 Smoother repairs: A mechanic can download diagnostic data ahead of the arrival of the car in the shop, prep the repair space and order the parts ahead of time, reducing otherwise unproductive repair times and increasing the service process’s efficiency.

 Predictive analytics: Compiling huge troves of diagnostic data from thousands of cars, manufacturers can use predictive analytics to refine future models by spotting design flaws, common breaking points and trends in car service. 

 Improved customer service: Manufacturers and dealerships can keep their customers in the loop with remote diagnostics-based proactive reminders about maintenance schedules and service alerts.

4. Over-the-Air Updates and Software Fixes

 Another innovation that remote diagnostics enables is over-the-air (OTA) updates: given that modern cars are basically computers on wheels, many issues are amenable to software repairs. A remote monitoring system can detect software bugs or outdated programs on the car’s onboard computers and command the manufacturer to push an OTA update to the car directly.

 This not only increases the speed and efficiency of the vehicle, but also allows drivers to skip the hassle of having to go to the dealership for relatively simple repairs. (The company has pioneered this technology in the automotive space, regularly issued OTA updates that have ranged from improving battery cycles to adding user interface features.

The Future of Remote Diagnostics: Autonomous Vehicles and AI

 Remote diagnostics undoubtedly will keep evolving in the future. They will accompany innovations in autonomous vehicles and artificial intelligence (AI). Self-driving cars will be heavily reliant on the regular remote diagnostics, providing real-time feedback on system-level diagnostics. This is absolutely necessary – chances are you would not want to take your life in your hands if the self-driving feature has not been working properly. With remote monitoring in place, self-driving cars will be constantly watched. Any problems that might occur during the trip will be instantly flagged and eliminated before they affect the performance of the vehicle.

 One of the main applications of AI here will be in handling the vast volumes of data generated by connected vehicles. It will enable machine learning with drivers or sensors to detect patterns and to predict failures more accurately than ever before, offering even more proactive maintenance and reducing breakdowns to a minimum. The savings could be huge. Such systems will also allow fleet management on a massive scale: large numbers of autonomous vehicles can be monitored and maintained from a distance.

Conclusion

 The wave of the future in car diagnostics isn’t on your dashboard at all – it’s coming from afar! Gone are the days when your mechanic would connect to your car’s electronic control units to perform diagnostics. Tomorrow’s connected cars will routinely and automatically send diagnostic information to remote servers, where it can be used to predict malfunctions before they occur, schedule maintenance, and keep your car repair bill low.

 Therefore, every time a car firm updates its diagnostic apps, these can be shared globally, leading to smarter maintenance. This, in turn, means that vehicles will run more safely and effectively, all increasing drivers’ pleasure, performance and safety. Now, with discoveries in artificial intelligence and a future with autonomous vehicles on our horizon, the future of car diagnostics will continue to amaze.