The use of onboard diagnostics to reduce emissions in automobiles

Abstract

The emissions from automobiles are very harmful and include gases such as Carbon Dioxide, Nitrous Oxide, and Sulfur Dioxide. One of the main reasons OBD was created was to control emissions however it currently only monitors the status of the systems set in place to reduce emissions. The goal of this project is to use the OBD II system currently available in vehicles to monitor fuel emissions from many cars at different locations. By placing a small OBD II scanner and GPS receiver into a fleet of vehicles, emissions from these vehicles can be monitored and mapped out to show the different emissions levels on different roads. Although the plan is to develop a cheaper OBD II scanner and GPS unit to place on a few cars, an already existing scanner and GPS receiver has been used to begin collecting data for analysis, which will be discussed in this paper. The data has been useful to prove that road design and driver input impact the fuel consumption and emissions of a vehicle heavily.