OpenXC Platform Released

[Chris]

The OpenXC vehicle application research platform is now available at http://openxcplatform.com

Ford created the OpenXC platform to spur innovation by extending access to vehicle data for hardware interface and software application research and non-commercial development.

If you're more interested in commercial availability and application integration with Ford SYNC via the AppLink API, please visit: http://developer.ford.com .

The OpenXC website has expanded since the initial announcement, so there is most likely much more content than when you first signed up. The best place to begin is the "Getting Started" page: http://openxcplatform.com/getting-started/index.html.

As of now, the Android library and vehicle interface source code repositories are now available to the general public at GitHub: https://github.com/openxc. Both repositories are open source under the BSD license.

Any developer is free to start work on an application and can use the vehicle emulator to simulate live vehicle data. In order to use OpenXC with a Ford vehicle at this time, we ask you work on proof-of-concept applications only and that you sign an agreement to that effect. Details of the agreement are available here: http://openxcplatform.com/agreement.html.

[Alex Makarov]

Looks promising. I wonder whether there are any plans on controlling the vehicle (at least some relatively safe features, like lights&doors) via OpenXC interface. Meanwhile there's not too much sense to assemble this board instead of just buying 15$ bluetooth OBD-II unit.

[zak]

Alex,

 

I have tried to read invehicle parameters using the 15$ OBD-II Unit, but the advantage of using OpenXC is we can use the Android library that it already built and do not worry about connecting to the hardware unit, I had a  tough time writing my own set of libraries to connect to these cheap chinese units(ELM 327) and finally was able to read some live vehicle paramaters, but frequent disconnections and speed of reading the values was an issue. I believe by using the Hardware unit recommended by the OpenXC team, these things would not be an issue.

 

Regards,

Zak

[Alex Makarov]

Hi Zak,

The reason why I was asking is that I'm actually using a cheap bluetooth OBD-II adapter with my Android just fine. There're some nice apps allowing you to display,save and analyze the data, like Torque Pro and aLapHD; there's even an open source app called WiFiLapper - you can take a look at their code working with OBD-II PIDs. What you get is a quite decent telemetry tool, especially combined with 10-Hz external GPS receiver (sample recorded by me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2gV31a60o8 )

However you can't get data for many interesting sensors, like buttons/doors/brake pedal/steering wheel angle/ABS sensors(?). This what makes OpenXC interesting. And personally for me it's even more important if there's a way to control car components via OpenXC.

Alex

[Christopher Peplin]

Regardless of their differences in quality and capability, it would be great to have support in the Android library to read and parse data from existing OBD-II scanners, too. I created an issue for this feature here, if anyone is interested in tackling it: https://github.com/openxc/openxc-android/issues/19

The idea is basically that you could have the benefits of a ready to use Java interface for Android apps but use whatever existing hardware you happen to have.