OBD GPS Tracker

 

Objective: The client wanted to develop a small low cost device that could plug into the OBD connector of any post 1996 vehicle. Once installed the device would provide geo-tracking and automatically call 911 in the event of an accident or panic alarm by the operator.

 

Result: Our role was to work closely with the client's engineering team and be responsible for software development for the embedded controller. Having a through understanding of both the hardware and software requirements, we were able to identify hardware/software tradeoffs and quantify the potential effect on the total system performance.

 

Building on our past experience with TI's ARM 9 processor product line and the TI DSP/BIOS RTOS software suite, Original Technology was able to quickly bring up a multi-tasking environment on the TI AM1806 Sitara processor and develop interface drivers for the GSM, GPS, OBD, Audio, accelerometer, and other custom peripherals. These peripherals used a combination of USART, I2C, SPI, I2S, and high speed parallel interfaces. In addition the AM1806 two PRU's were used to offload high speed I/O functions and only interrupt the application when a complete packet of data was transferred.

 

By combining a mixture of C and assembly and incorporating code exported from MATLAB, the multi-tasking software was able to automatically detect a crash event, categorize the severity of the event, contact 911, and report—not only the location of the vehicle but the vehicle type and the severity of the crash.