An Ad-Hoc Bluetooth Sensor Network for Automotive Testing

Abstract

In this paper, the feasibility of using a sensor network for automotive testing is investigated. Testing is becoming ever more important for the car industry, where the demands for quicker time-to-market and shortened development cycles are increasing. Car testing is time consuming, and is often performed in remote rural areas. Traditional methods include wiring up a vehicle with sensors connected to a data logging device. We envision that the use of wireless sensors can drastically decrease the time required to perform a set of test cases. A sensor network based on Bluetooth was used to validate our design approach. The network supports real-time monitoring of sensor data, and precludes the need of manually configuring each sensor node. Preliminary tests indicates that the proposed design is well suited for vehicle testing, due to its inherent support for ad-hoc networking and auto configuration of services.