Solution We Came Up With!

·         When the “check engine” lights stays on or blinks, the OBD Scanner will inspect the ECU and detect the reason for that. Using the data extracted out of the port, application will tell the user where the problem has occurred. Some of these data would be, acceleration, deceleration, speed of vehicle, safety issues, mechanical issues, Miles Per Gallon, engine temperatures, brake system, ,battery, oil pressure, engine misfire, tire pressure, parking sensor, CO2 emissions, lights and windshield fluid data

• ·         In order to overcome the problems that the cab service owners encounter when they hand over vehicles to drivers,

-          The system will track the driver’s location using GPS and notify the owner about the location details via an email.

-          The approximate amount of fuel that can be consumed by the vehicle throughout the journey and the actual amount of fuel consumed can be obtained with the aid of the system to come into conclusions whether the driver has done his duty properly without using the vehicle for his personal use.

-          Using A/C sensor values and vehicle rpm values the system will be able to tell whether the driver has been wasting vehicle’s A/C unnecessarily.

-          The speed in which the driver is driving the vehicle can be tracked to see whether the driver is driving in a responsible manner.

• ·         Separate profiles for every driver and every vehicle will be implemented to record important information relevant to them. Therefore managing those aspects would be easy and efficient.
• ·         When the owner repairs the vehicle, repairing the parts indicated in the application would be sufficient. Therefore the repair costs will be reduced.
• ·         When the performance of the engine is under proper inspection of the application, fuel won’t be wasted unnecessarily. Therefore the cost on fuel will be reduced. And also when the usage of A/C is being monitored, wastage of fuel won’t be there.
• ·          To address the problem “environmental pollution”, the application will log catalytic convertor issues so the technician can fine tune the engine and exhaust system. Therefore the system will generate the Carbon dioxide emission data and the status of the catalytic convertor. If errors can be seen in those reports, necessary actions can be taken immediately.

• ·         Long distance trips can be planned well because the system will be able to work out the amount of fuel needed for the journey, considering the distance to the destination.
• ·         Vehicles won’t encounter unexpected errors  in the middle of any journey and also the travelling in the vehicle will be safe as the application do tasks as given below

-          Always monitors whether the engine is safely operating,

-          Transmission Temperatures of the vehicle will be read and the app will indicate whether the transmission oils are overheating or not.

-          Lets the user know how long he can travel with the remaining fuel amount, so running low on fuel is impossible in the middle of some journey.

-          Alarms and warnings will be implemented if there’s any mechanical problem

-          Check the battery charged level to ensure the battery is functioning properly

-          Engine temperature will be recorded to detect malfunctions in the engine,

-          Engine oil level will be displayed

-          Status of brake oil level will be displayed

-          Power steering oil level will be displayed.

-          Gearbox oil level and its status will be displayed

-          If there’s any misfire occurs in cylinders, it will be notified

-          Indicates whether the functionality of the ABS is fine or not

Problem to be addressed

At present the company doesn’t use any sort of Automobile Diagnostics and Assistance System and the client wants this system as an extension for their core product. Basically what the client expects from the final product is to have an android mobile application which composes of various useful functions that can be implemented by using every possible technical detail extracted from the OBD device. Not having a proper system to do the above mentioned task being the major problem faced by the client, this section will describe the other issues face by the vehicle owners and drivers.

·         Not knowing the reason when the “check engine “light stays on.

When this light flashes, the vehicle user doesn’t know what the malfunction is unless he/she checks it with a technician.

·         Problems that the cab service owners encounter when they hand over vehicles to drivers.

-          Sometimes the drivers can use the vehicles for their personal reasons without the knowledge of the owner.

-          The drivers might use the air conditioner of the vehicle unnecessarily.

-          The drivers might drive the vehicles in an irresponsible manner which can cause damages to sensors of the vehicle.

-          The drivers might not use the vehicles with proper care.

-          There can be drivers who don’t deliver an honest service.

·         Not having an efficient methodology to carry out functions in cab service industry.

Cab service owners do not have a proper way to keep records of their employees (drivers) and the vehicles owned by them.

·         High cost spent on repairs

Sometimes owners will have to take vehicles for unnecessary repairs and incase they left different malfunctions unaddressed, it would cause increasingly expensive repairs.

·         High cost spent on fuels

The owners have to spend a lot of money on refilling the fuel tanks as the fuel prices are quite high and the increasing motor traffic causes the wastage of fuel.

·         Vehicles being one of the major reasons of environmental pollution.

With the increasing number of vehicles the emission of poisonous gasses such as Carbon Monoxide has been increased resulting massive issues like ozone layer depletion and global warming.

·         Not having an efficient method to plan long distance trips.

Sometimes estimating the average time to complete the trip and the amount of fuel required for the whole journey would be not easy.

·         Vehicles might encounter unexpected errors in the middle of the journey.

There can breakdowns in vehicles, flat tires, engine failures or running low on fuel as the driver was not aware of relevant information or the malfunctions of the vehicle at the start up.

·         Not having a proper mechanism to get to know about real time sensor data.

Drivers would prefer to know real time information  (such as acceleration, deceleration, speed of the vehicle, left amount of fuel, oil pressure, engine temperatures, tire pressures) and there should be a proper method to deliver those information in a manner which can be understood by non-technical people.

·         Vehicles can meet with accidents and the owner might not get notified any time soon.

Sometimes vehicles of the cab service can meet with accidents and there’s no proper way to convey the message to the owner immediately.

·         Motor vehicle theft has become a common problem.

The owner or the driver would want to get notified immediately if some theft situation occurred at the parking lot.

What are Trouble Codes?

In this project the main requirement of our client was to have a way of identifying what causes his car to malfunction. Through the OBD port we can extract all the details related to the Engine of the vehicle and if your "Check Engine Light" is on, it means your vehicle has one or more OBD II Trouble Codes. The "Malfunction Indicator Lamp" (or MIL ) comes on to warn you when the Onboard Diagnostic System (OBD II) detects a problem that cold cause your vehicle's emissions to exceed 1.5 times the legal limit. 


A trouble code is an alphanumeric value that corresponds to a particular type of fault. The list was originally created by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) for use by all vehicle manufacturers who have to comply with OBD II emissions regulations in the U.S. The same list of basic codes have also been adopted by European and Asian auto makers. The list of trouble codes is subdivided into four basic categories:

• Powertrain ("P") codes (engine, transmission and emissions systems)
• Body ("B") codes (Climate control system, lighting, airbags, etc.)
• Chassis ("C") codes (antilock brake system, electronic suspension and steering systems)
• Network Communications ("U") codes (controller area network wiring bus and modules)These codes are further divided into two major groups:

1. Generic or Global codes, which have a "0" as their second digit to indicate they are common to all makes and models of vehicles. These are the codes that are required for basic emissions fault diagnosis.
2. Enhanced or Manufacturer Specific codes, which have a "1" as their second digit to indicate they are unique to a particular vehicle make or model. These special codes were deemed necessary by the vehicle manufacturers so they could provide additional diagnostic information beyond the basic list of generic OBD II codes for all kinds of faults, not just emissions-related faults.

There are approximately 5,000+ generic OBD2 DTC codes. I have listed down some of it here.

Related to: Fuel and Air Metering

• P0001       Fuel Volume Regulator Control Circuit/Open
• P0002       Fuel Volume Regulator Control Circuit Range/Performance
• P0003       Fuel Volume Regulator Control Circuit Low
• P0004       Fuel Volume Regulator Control Circuit High
• P0005       Fuel Shutoff Valve Control Circuit/Open
• P0006       Fuel Shutoff Valve Control Circuit Low
• P0007       Fuel Shutoff Valve Control Circuit H igh
• P0008       Engine Position System Performance (Bank1)
• P0009       Engine Position System Performance (Bank2)

Background Of The Project

A description about our client

Our client is Nitrous Technologies which is a sub company of Rajini Natural Products. It is a small scale organization and it is located in Dehiwala. This company develops fleet management and vehicle tracking systems and they require our application as an extension of the core product. The application will be installed in some of the cabs which belong to a cab service company. 

After a couple of client meetings we were able to list down some of the problems our client encounters during his day to day business activities and our application will be providing solutions for them.

Some of the issues we discussed were,

• Why the "check engine" light stays on in your vehicle? 

• Cab service owners encountering problems when they hand over vehicles to drivers

• Having to spend high costs on vehicle repairs

• High cost spent on fuel

• Vehicles causing air/environmental pollution

• Motor vehicle theft issues.

• Finding it difficult to plan long distance trips

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An Introduction To Our SEP Project

Our team is developing an auto mobile diagnosis and assistance system for the third year software engineering project. If I give a simple definition for our system, what our system does is it's gonna help you understand your car better. We are developing an Android Mobile application and you are gonna need an OBD-2 scanner and you have to connect it to the OBD Port in your vehicle. And our app is gonna show you every tiny detail about your vehicle and if your car engine has issues, they will be displayed on your phone screen. You might wonder how we are gonna communicate between your car engine and the phone. We are using Bluetooth for that. 

You might be interested in knowing what this OBD is. OBD stands for On-Board Diagnostics.

On-board diagnostics (OBD) is an automotive term referring to a vehicle's self-diagnostic and reporting capability. OBD systems give the vehicle owner or repair technician access to the status of the various vehicle subsystems. The amount of diagnostic information available via OBD has varied widely since its introduction in the early 1980s versions of on-board vehicle computers. Early versions of OBD would simply illuminate a malfunction indicator light or "idiot light" if a problem was detected but would not provide any information as to the nature of the problem. Modern OBD implementations use a standardized digital communications port to provide real-time data in addition to a standardized series of diagnostic trouble codes, or DTCs, which allow one to rapidly identify and remedy malfunctions within the vehicle.

OBD Port

OBD Scanner