A vehicle monitoring device

摘要

A monitoring and reporting device for use in a mobile asset, such as a vehicle, comprises a monitoring interface for obtaining operational parameters from the asset, a buffer memory 37, a communications interface 38 for receiving commands from a remote monitoring system and a processor 35 configured to store the operational parameters in the buffer in response to a command received from the monitoring system. The monitoring interface may be a CAN bus 30 interface and the operational parameters can be derived from CAN bus messages. The command preferably configures the buffer interface so that only relevant data is stored in the buffer 37. This means that unnecessary data is not collected. Also provided is non-volatile memory 40 to which data may be transferred from the buffer, such as if the communications link to down or if the buffer reaches a threshold capacity. A continuous communications link is not required and data is not lost if the link is interrupted. Also provided is an interface device for a vehicle that detects whether or not a wireless interface is available for live transmission of operational parameters and stored the data if it is not.