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Whether it be in highly visible features like fascinating new infotainment systems or hidden behind the scenes in complex new hybrid powertrain controls, in-vehicle software is rapidly changing the way the automotive industry engages its vehicle-buying customers. In every application where a compelling new electronic solution is emerging, it is enabled by the convergence of in-vehicle software developed by different collaborating partners. As more and more component suppliers, vehicle OEMs, and technology vendors enter into collaborative software development projects with each other, a new set of technical and business challenges are showing collaborative software development to be a very distinctive proposition than traditional stand-alone development.

As regulations for on-board diagnostics head toward the heavy-duty trucking industry, there are a variety of new communication concepts that will directly impact J1939 systems. ECUs on J1939 networks must support new standard diagnostic protocols and data. Vehicles must provide single-point access for concise OBD data sets that represent multiple ECUs. New technologies, such as wireless communication links, present completely new and different scenarios for diagnostic testing. Understanding these concepts and their implications is essential to designing a J1939 system that will integrate into the coming global OBD infrastructure.

The ISO11783 (ISOBUS) standard for communication between tractors and farming implements provides significant opportunities to improve the service process for agricultural equipment. Existing approaches to diagnostics in the transportation industry include an array of different technologies. These existing technologies can be combined in new ways in the ISOBUS environment to provide new value. Of particular interest is a data-driven diagnostic test system that ensures implements produced by different manufacturers provide a consistent and compatible interface to generic diagnostic test systems. By sharing data and software components, such a system can produce significant gains in quality, efficiency and interoperability.

Perhaps more than any other automotive discipline, diagnostics has been the source of fragmented and redundant efforts. Diagnostic test tools are frequently reinvented for engineering, manufacturing and dealership service activities. Embedded software to support diagnostic functions is uniquely and manually created for each ECU. Uncoordinated databases storing duplicate protocol information are common. The absence of a comprehensive diagnostic data model has prolonged these inefficiencies and prevented diagnostic activities from realizing a unified system. A systems approach, based on a comprehensive data model, can eliminate redundant and parallel efforts across diagnostic activities and improve reliability by integrating previously uncoordinated applications. A proposed structure and the benefits of such an approach are the focus of this paper.