OBD-Br as an Enabler for Benchmarking, Compliance Analysis, Automation and More 2021-36-0006

Vehicle On-Board Diagnostic (OBD) regulations have long since expanded their original purpose of helping vehicle owners and technicians with malfunction diagnosis. In the United States and European Union, what was initially conceived as an effort to standardize electronic engine control (EEC) related diagnostics, has grown to a much broader scope, including in-use monitor performance ratio (IUMPR), telematics, real-driving emissions (RDE) monitoring, analysis and benchmarking of tailpipe emissions and fuel economy, Inspection and Maintenance (I/M) programs. OBD Telematics has even become a popular do-it-yourself (DIY) project topic; Brazilian OBD, on the other hand, remains mostly focused on the on-board monitoring of emissions related malfunctions. However, the improvement of Brazilian OBD regulations (OBD-Br) can be gradual; it does not need to incorporate the latest and most stringent California Air Resources Board (CARB) and European requirements at once and in full - e.g. IUMPR and EU RDE. On the contrary, the approach proposed here - which should be complementary to the periodical OBD-Br updating and improvement process - involves the relatively simple expansion of the list of mandatory standardized parameter IDs (PIDs) to be made available, with unrestricted access, through the OBD connector (also known as legislative PIDs). The following opportunities, which would be enabled by this extended PID list, will be discussed: automation and OBD compliance; drive-cycle characterization and fuel economy; RDE; diesel enhanced diagnostic. This paper will also illustrate how the access to OBD information can be accomplished with the help of a homemade scan-tool (project detailed instructions provided as well).