Onboard Computers
The view from Cadec.
JOHN BENDEL
TECHNOLOGY EDITOR
Someday soon, onboard computers and drivers will "talk'' to each other. Powerful, low-cost computers will be standard factory options on new trucks, the data they collect will be easily shared and may include detailed records of accidents — including video. Computers will also assure that drivers are authorized and loads uncompromised.
This next-generation assessment comes from Les Dole, president and CEO of Cadec Corp., Londonderry, New Hampshire, an early developer of onboard computers for trucks. Dole worked for such companies as G.E. and Digital Equipment and in advanced fields like artificial intelligence before becoming general manager of Cadec. He and Cadec's employees bought the company from Cummins Corp. in 1999. Dole has 35 years of computer industry experience and a rare sense of onboard computer history.
Yesterday
Dole recently spoke with HDT about the evolution of onboard computers, beginning with the recollections of his 83-year-old father-in-law, a former fleet manager who used early tachographs, the first practical device for onboard data recording. Tachographs created paper disks of recorded truck activity, usually over a 24-hour period.
"My father-in-law was responsible for all of Ballantine Beer's trucks in the northeast out of Newark, N.J. I asked him how it used to go,'' said Dole.
"He was very familiar with the tachograph. He said, Les, visualize this: every night the trucks would come home with their trip recorders, right? I had 250 trucks running around the northeast. So I'd take all those pieces of paper and I'd put a rubber band around them and then I'd put them on my desk. At the end of the week, I'd try and go through each piece of paper and do some analysis work,'' Dole recalled.
"That kind of gives you some perspective on how far we've come,'' he said.
The first electronic onboard computers were an improvement, but not a vast one. Dole said Cadec developed Cummins's first onboard computer in the early 1980s.
"I can tell you it wasn't very powerful. It had 8,000 characters of memory and it operated at 2 megahertz of processing speed. It was very limited. It was pretty much tied to the engine, checking idling time and some driver performance stuff,'' he said.
Today
"Today we're operating at 64 megabytes of memory and 200 megahertz using the RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer) processor, which makes it much faster than even that. The software is very robust in terms of being able to interact with the driver and automate a host of functions &# 151; the logs, the delivery process. What's most exciting from that point of view is that there's very little data entry the driver makes because it's all anticipated and presented to him as prompts and drop-downs,'' said Dole.
Company-wide operations benefit from contemporary onboard computers, he said. Cadec's Mobius TTS, for example, runs applications on Microsoft's popular Windows CE platform, making data more compatible with other systems within a company.
"They all can get their information very easily. It's a huge difference,'' Dole said.
According to Dole, the emergence of a standard platform will lead to lower prices on peripheral products such as handhelds and printers, making those items more appealing for uses in the truck cab. There will be more peripheral choices as well.
"Another big breakthrough is the relational database software that allows you to cut the data any way you want to in terms of analysis. Say you want to see drivers delayed by more than 15 minutes and less than 30 minutes. You can cut it exactly that way. All you do is put in the parameters and, bam, you've got it."
As capabilities increase, so do expectations.
"What we've seen lately, customers now want the software tailored to their business,'' said Dole. In the past, he explained, onboard computer capacity was taken up with standard software — logs and delivery routes, for example. "There wasn't a lot of extra capacity to do customized apps,'' said Dole. "Now there is.''
One reason is the lower price of solid-state memory, the only kind really suited to the extreme temperatures and vibration onboard computers must endure. Standard hard disk drives simply don't work under those circumstances, he said.
"Clearly the hardware is getting smaller, more powerful, more reliable and more cost effective,'' said Dole.
Tomorrow
"In the computer business, you always have to be looking at new technologies,'' said Dole. "The two that seem to be showing promise are voice recognition and video.''
Dole said that voice recognition software is getting more compact and adaptable, but still requires fast processor speeds and a lot of memory. Noisy truck cabs also present a challenge. On the other hand, drivers won't be dictating memos so much as speaking commands. What they now have to push buttons for, they'll just say Ôon duty' or Ôdelivery,' said Dole.
After sound comes vision.
"Video is getting miniaturized and digitized so it can be tied in,'' said Dole.
"To give you an example, you can have video cameras check blind spots on the truck. You can check the security of the delivery. And you could be also checking for an accident situation.''
Dole envisions a small camera looking forward from the windshield recording a constant 30-second loop. The half-minute prior to an impact could be saved for analysis.
Beyond safety, lies the burgeoning concern of security.
"A lot's happened since 911. Many of our major customers, especially the ones who haul hazardous materials, know the technology can do more in terms of security. They want to talk about it,'' said Dole.
"Both the state and federal governments have established groups that have asked us to provide them with information on how this technology can be used in making every aspect of transportation safer.
"I can tell you they have to do with validating that the driver is the driver. They have to do with the vehicle itself, making sure that nobody has tampered with the load anywhere along the line. So that's the direction things are going,'' said Dole.
