Agriculture and construction industries are evolving to include more electronic controls on vehicles and mobile equipment providing improved diagnostics, programmability for new/updated features/functions, job management and data analysis.

Furthermore, electronic control cloud connectivity is becoming more popular which extends all of these functions out to remote locations and/or from a central office.

Connecting the electronics in vehicles/equipment up to the cloud allows for managing a fleet of vehicles from within an office, performing remote diagnostics or viewing over a mobile phone from around the world, pushing out software updates to thousands of remote devices at once with the click of a button or developing customized data analytics using the platform’s API.

JCA Electronics introduces JCA Cumulus, a flexible, highly configurable, cloud-based platform which can be customized for a wide variety of applications. This article presents three ways that our clients can use this technology:

• Fleet management
• Remote diagnostics
• Remote device software updates

Figure 1: JCA Cumulus Architecture

Fleet Management

Figure 2: Fleet Management Architecture

The JCA Cumulus platform can be used to coordinate the activities and monitor a fleet of equipment in real-time (anything connected to the internet has some inherent latency however updates within a few seconds are practical).

Data can be automatically analyzed by the Cumulus platform looking for patterns which might indicate equipment failure. Keeping track of where your equipment is and any unsafe driving habits gives you the peace of mind that your equipment is going to stay with you and last as long as it’s intended. Coordinating jobs between operators can all be done from behind a desk or even in the field on a mobile phone or tablet. The system can even be used as a virtual time card for verification purposes, automatically recording when operators are moving and when they are standing still.

Remote Diagnostics

Figure 3: Remote Diagnostics Operator Panel Conceptual Sketch

Having the capability of identifying and diagnosing equipment issues without having to send out a technician can be priceless. Even if a technician is required, feeding them with the correct information can help reduce costs and prevent a second service call to fix the same issue. With JCA Cumulus, all of your products can be remotely monitored and even help in providing automatic detection of issues before your customer or operator even notices something is wrong.

Remote Device Software Updates

Figure 4: Remote Device Software Upgrade Architecture

Software is becoming more and more complex, either bug fixes or new functionality is added after the initial release which could mean huge costs in getting customers products updated with the latest software. JCA’s Cumulus platform can make the whole process as simple as clicking a few buttons and waiting for all of the devices to be upgraded securely and safely.

Anytime software updates are performed in-field without intervention, it’s absolutely essential to have failsafes in place to prevent failure due to loss of connection or any other issue that may come up. JCA uses strategies such as having two sets of software at all times. This provides two main benefits:

1. The currently running software is not interrupted while a software update is in progress. The new software will only be run after a system reset.

2. If for any reason the new software doesn’t start up properly, the system will automatically revert back to previously running software and allow the operator to continue without interruption.

These are just some of the ways the Cloud can be used to extend the capabilities of the vehicle control system. The JCA Cumulus system provides a configurable platform capable of integrating these features. Please contact JCA if you would like to learn more.