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Telematics System Overview

The Proemion Global Telematics system allows an organization to deliver advanced telematics services without the need for maintaining a software development team. This is achievable due to the high degree of configurability that is designed into each system component.

Components

The Proemion Global Telematics system comprises the following in-house developed components.

  • CANlink® mobile: a Telematics Control Unit (TCU), typically installed in large numbers on mobile and stationary machines, and it is responsible for collecting machine data and sending it to the DataPlatform, as well as delivering data to the machine from remote stakeholders, such as service technicians and fleet managers.
  • DataPlatform: a cloud platform, which provides TCU connectivity services, holds all TCU and machine data, and allows authorized stakeholders to access the data in a structured manner via appropriate client applications.
  • DataPortal: a web portal is the web client application, which allows various stakeholders (customer support, engineers, product managers, dealers, machine owners, rental clients, etc.) to view data with appropriate restrictions and presentation approaches to suit their needs.
  • Machine Companion: an Android and iOS app, which provides a subset of the DataPortal's functionality.
  • Remote Service Tool: a Microsoft Windows based application, which allows specialists to view real-time diagnostics and perform machine parameter adjustments remotely.
graph TB
  controller[Engine Control Unit,
Machine Control Unit,
Sensors, etc]
  conf[Proemion Configurator]
  dod[/"Device Object
Dictionary (DOD)"/]
  clm[CANlink® mobile]
  xml[XML text editor]
  pdc[/"Parsing Definition
Configuration (PDC)"/]
  platform[(DataPlatform)]
  rst[Remote Service Tool]
  portal[DataPortal]
  mobileapp[Machine Companion]
  othertelematics[3rd party
telematics platform]
  otherapp[3rd party
application]
  otherstorage[3rd party
data storage]

  subgraph configuration tools
    conf
    xml
  end

  subgraph configuration files
    dod
    pdc
  end

  subgraph machine
    controller <--CAN bus---> clm
  end



  conf -.-> dod -.-> clm
  clm <--> platform
  xml -.-> pdc
  pdc -.-> platform

  platform <--REST API---> portal
  platform <--REST API---> mobileapp
  platform <--REAL-TIME API---> rst

  othertelematics --> platform
  platform <--REST, AEMP,
REAL-TIME API---> otherapp
  platform --DATA PUMP---> otherstorage


The Proemion DataPlatform is also used as a telematics data hub, homogenizing and enriching data from 3rd party telematics systems. If you require to import data from any of the supported 3rd systems, or any telematics systems we do not yet support, please contact your Proemion sales representative.

All machine data, metadata, and DataPlatform connectivity services, can also be used to integrate 3rd party applications such as web portals, mobile apps, service & diagnostics tools, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, etc.

Finally, data can be continuously pushed from the DataPlatform onto another data storage, typically one on Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud.

Integration with 3rd party systems is outside the scope of this guide. For help with such systems please contact Proemion support.

The CANlink® mobile 3600 is a Telematics Control Unit (TCU) designed to be adaptable to the demanding and ever-evolving requirements of off-highway machinery and special on-highway vehicles. This flexibility has made the CANlink® mobile and its predecessors the TCU of choice for a wide range of control applications that employ a Controller Area Network (CAN), from e-bikes to construction cranes.

The power of the CANlink® mobile 3600 comes from the fact that both simple and complex telematics functionality can be achieved without the need to start an embedded software development project and with relative ease too. This is possible due to the CANlink® mobile's heritage going back to the early 2000s, while the product has been continuously evolving and getting refined ever since. This evolution comes from knowledge accumulation that has been "translated" by Proemion's engineers into a set of tools, which enforce well-tested patterns by abstracting them into simple "configuration settings", all of which can be set via the Proemion Configurator.

At Proemion, when we integrate telematics to a new organization, we can normally implement all requirements as configuration. Only in a few exceptional cases we are required to develop new firmware, and when we do so, the result is always more configuration parameters that allow other organizations to also benefit from these new developments.

Although this sounds like too many configuration options, most of them can safely be ignored until needed. Simple functionality can be realized effortlessly, whereas advanced requirements can most certainly be realized without running into a roadblock, as it is often the case with systems that were designed focusing only on making simple telematics features easy to configure. All this is possible with the Proemion Configurator.

In this guide you will learn how to program the CANlink® mobile 3600 using the Proemion Configurator through a series of tutorials.

For instructions on how to install the Proemion Configurator and prepare a CANlink® mobile device, you can refer to the following guides:

DataPlatform, PDC and DataPortal

The DataPlatform, which stores and processes all data, and provides connectivity services, and DataPortal, which provides access to the data, are both highly configurable, thus making them an excellent choice for organizations who do not want to invest in developing bespoke server and web interface software.

From your perspective as a Proemion telematics system maintainer, the only DataPlatform item that requires configuration is the "translation" between binary machine data and human-readable machine metrics.

This is achieved via an Extensible Markup Language (XML) configuration file called the Parsing Definition Configuration (PDC), which can be edited with the text editor of your choice. In this guide we will present the elements of the PDC as needed for each CANlink® mobile 3600 tutorial. A reference PDC manual is also available.

The DataPortal is configurable via its web User Interface (UI) itself. This guide will not discuss the configuration of the DataPortal, unless it is necessary for fully understanding the topic of the tutorial at hand.