.KEYWORD caterpillar
.FLYINGHEAD PALM IN THE REAL WORLD
.TITLE Caterpillar Pocket Technician retrieves data from truck engines
.OTHER
.SUMMARY Given their form factor, ease of use, long battery life, and solid reliability, Palm devices are becoming more and more popular in construction, manufacturing, and industrial environments. Aaron Donnelli, an Electronic Development Engineer with Caterpillar, Inc., offers this real world example of how the power of Palm computing is being used to remotely retrieve data from Caterpillar Electronic Engines.
.AUTHOR Aaron Donnelli
Most people driving down the highway passing 18-wheel trucks on the right don’t give a second thought about the driver of that truck or of the business he or she is part of. But whether driving for a large fleet, a small fleet, or an individual owner-operator, this driver is part of a business that equates time and operating efficiency with income.
Most people also don’t think about the complex system of electronic controls that are enabling that truck to move down the road. Just like the car you drive to work everyday, the electronic controls on these trucks represent some of the most advanced electronics on the road.
Although most people don’t ponder these two scenarios very often, we at Caterpillar’s Electrical and Electronic Systems Division think about it every day. Our division at Caterpillar (at http://www.caterpillar.com) is charged with creating both the electronics that run the engines and the off-board and on-board systems that interface with the electronics and provide information to the customer. Whether used in that truck on the highway or the largest mining truck in the world, the Caterpillar 797 Mining Truck, pictured in Figure A, there’s a wealth of information available in these systems.
.FIGPAIR A The Caterpillar 797 Mining Truck, photo courtesy of Caterpillar Inc.
This is where our Palm OS application, Pocket Technician, comes in. The Pocket Technician system is a non-traditional Palm OS application that takes advantage of the Palm device’s ease of use, portability, and small form factor to interface with Caterpillar Electronic Engines and provide valuable information to the customer.
.H1 Caterpillar Electronic Engines
Introduced in 1987, Caterpillar Electronic Engines (at http://www.cattruckengines.com) have been evolving ever since. An example is pictured in Figure B.
.FIGPAIR B The Caterpillar C-12 engine, photo courtesy of Caterpillar Inc.
Although the electronics are used primarily to control the operation of the engine, the result of this control is a wealth of information available for extraction that can be passed on to the customer. The electronics provide operating information (temperatures, pressures, fuel consumption), diagnostic information, customer programmable parameters (idle speed, cruise control mode), and much more.
In addition to the Pocket Technician system, Caterpillar already provides a number of off- and on-board systems used to extract data from the electronic engine controls. Caterpillar provides a PC-based service tool called Electronic Technician, available to Caterpillar dealers and customers. Caterpillar also provides a dash-mounted display that provides information to the truck driver.
.H1 Defining the market
As mentioned above, the operation of an on-highway truck or a fleet of trucks is a business. As such, the business owner requires tools that will enable him to know everything he can about his trucks. Many customers don’t want to carry laptops out to their trucks each time they want information. They also want something more portable than the dash-mounted display available from Caterpillar. This need gave birth to the Pocket Technician system.
Once the market was defined, we were charged with choosing the platform and creating the product. The ease of use of Palm devices made them the preferred platform, since most people can pick up a Palm device and learn to use it within minutes. The ability of the Palm device to capture data and bring it back to the office for review later was also critical.
.H1 Inside the Pocket Technician software
Once we decided to use the Palm OS platform, we realized we had to learn how to write Palm OS applications. Craig Curry, a Senior Electronic Development Engineer at Caterpillar and a veteran in the development of electronic handheld tools, was charged with learning the OS and the development environment. Within a few weeks, Craig was up to speed and creating sample applications to test the techniques he would use for the Pocket Technician software. Craig admits that the hardest part of writing Palm OS applications is fitting everything that we want to show the customer onto a relatively small screen.
When using the Pocket Technician software, the user is presented with a main screen that shows nine different icons for the program features, as seen in Figure C.
.FIG C A large picture and a caption represent each of the feature icons.
Selecting the Config icon takes you to the Configuration feature. Configuration allows you to program certain parameters and view others that are read-only. In Figure D, you can see four parameters that can be changed.
.FIG D Configuration allows you to program certain parameters.
Tapping on the parameter name or value will bring up a dialog to change the parameter. Pressing the up and down scroll buttons takes you to the other parameters.
Selecting the Status icon from the main screen takes you to the Status feature. Status displays operating information for the engine, as you can see in Figure E.
.FIG E Status displays operating information for the engine.
The Scan button puts the feature in scan mode and automatically scrolls through the parameters. Six parameters are shown on the screen here, and tapping the screen will zoom in to four and then three parameters on the screen.
Selecting the Diag icon from the main screen takes you to the Active Diagnostic Code feature. Active Diagnostic Codes are used to indicate when there’s a problem or potential problem with the engine. Figure F shows Active Codes with several codes active.
.FIG F Understanding Active Codes can help keep your truck engine on the road.
Tapping on any one of the active codes will display more information and advice about that code, as shown in Figure G.
.FIG G Tapping on any one of the active codes will display more information.
The Lifetime icon opens the Lifetime Totals screen, showing the totals accumulated over the lifetime of the truck. It’s pictured in Figure H.
.FIG H The Lifetime Totals screen shows the totals accumulated over the lifetime of the truck.
The Trip icon opens the Trip Totals display, showing the totals accumulated during the last trip, as seen in Figure I.
.FIG I Trip Totals shows the totals accumulated during the last trip.
Additional Pocket Technician software features include:
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET 1-800: gives you several 1-800 numbers for help with your Caterpillar Engine and support for using the software;
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Maint: allows you to track routine maintenance intervals, and;
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Theft Det: enables a security system that is built into the electronic engine controls.
.END_LIST
In addition to the features available while connected to an engine, the Demo feature allows you to use the entire program in a demonstration mode with canned data. This is a great tool for learning the program and for sales personnel to show the program to customers without actually connecting to an engine.
.H1 Bringing the information back to the office
Viewing the information from the engine in real time is incredibly valuable to the customer, but the feature that makes the Pocket Technician system shine is the ability to save this data and bring it back to the PC in the office to review later. Often times, a fleet manager will want to record the Trip Totals from a truck and show those totals to the driver before the next trip, so they can discuss and improve his or her performance.
When we first decided that we needed to save data with the Pocket Technician software, the obvious solution was to create a custom conduit to bring the data back to the PC into a text file. We then had an idea that turned out to be easier to develop and more valuable to the customer. Craig programmed in the ability to save data to Memo Pad entries on the Palm device. By selecting Save to Memo from the Options menu within Active Codes, Lifetime, and Trip Totals, you can create Memo Pad entries with the saved data.
There are several advantages to using Memo Pad versus creating a custom conduit. First, the user can view the saved data on the Palm handheld by simply launching the Memo Pad application. We title the Memo Pad entry based on the feature that was saved. We also time and date stamp the entry and add the Vehicle ID for tracking purposes. The second advantage to using the Memo Pad application to save data is that we didn’t have to create a custom conduit. The normal HotSync process will bring the Memo Pad entries back into the Palm Desktop software. From the Palm Desktop software you can view, print, and copy the contents of each memo.
.H1 Where to go from here?
Our division has learned a lot about what it takes to develop Palm applications and to bring this type of product to market. Since our first version of the Pocket Technician software works for on-highway trucks, we’ll be looking at all of the other applications that use Caterpillar engines to see what products we’ll develop next.
Also, since our communications adapter that connects the Palm device to the engine electronics is housed in the Palm III modem case, our next challenge will be to build products that work for the Palm m100 line of devices and the new Palm m500 line of devices with the Universal Connector.
We expect that the forthcoming applications for handheld devices in the transportation, construction, equipment rental, and other categories will create numerous opportunities, both now and in the future, for us to deliver outstanding solutions for our customers.
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
For more information on Caterpillar Inc., visit http://www.caterpillar.com.
For more information on Caterpillar Electronic Engines, visit http://www.cattruckengines.com.
For more information about Palm computers, visit http://www.palm.com.
.H1 Bulk reprints
Bulk reprints of this article (in quantities of 100 or more) are available for a fee from Reprint Services, a ZATZ business partner. Contact them at reprints@zatz.com or by calling 1-800-217-7874.
.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO Aaron Donnelli is an Electronic Development Engineer with Caterpillar, Inc. at http://www.caterpillar.com.
.DISCUSS http://powerboards.zatz.com/cgi-bin/webx?50@@.ee6f3b4
