Established in 2013, FleetSol offers product development and top-class fleet management solutions. The range of solutions include development and supply of tactical mobility support system, multiple application military trucks, design and development of buses and their tracking systems, development and maintenance of fleet tracking system, and development of performance monitoring hubs system among others.
Mr. Micheal Lam – Technical Director, says: “We have mechanical capabilities, not just in design and building but also in the electronics where systems are interfaced to the on-board diagnostics to generate information about how the vehicles are doing, their driving dynamics and all.” FleetSol works closely with major global CV brands and their own state run passenger buses.
Dead reckoning
GPS, a small part of telematics, is not the only way to track vehicles anymore. Mr. Lam says it is dead reckoning that is now being ably used to calculate a vehicle’s position: “It basically uses information like speed, acceleration and the direction in which the vehicle is moving, its location and even in tunnels, to predict where it will be in the next moment.”
It uses the OBD sensors detect how fast the wheels are turning, and their magnetic direction. Mr. Lam adds: “Its accelerometers know how fast the vehicle is accelerating or slowing down because all this affects where the vehicle would be in the next moment. All of this goes into the mathematical process that predicts what is called the dead reckoning.”
Besides being cost effective, offering better security where FMS, according to Mr. Lam, should be working instead as a super security system, dead reckoning gives better management and deployment capabilities to a fleet owner. He says: “Even if not asked, the system must share the location of the vehicle.” A major advantage a fleet owner of trailers will be to use dead reckoning to know which prime mover is pulling which trailer.
Dealing with errors
Most GPS have the provision to get into the dead reckoning mode for short time periods when the connection is lost. Mr. Lam explains the challenges in it: “But dead reckoning acquires accumulated errors because as one continues to try and predict, errors get added into that prediction which can skew the whole system at any given point in time. So there must be a way to reset the system. Dead reckoning needs to be capable of resetting itself either by using GPS or sensors which can do this.”
Though superior mobility technology is being developed in Malaysia, the real challenge for the local industry is the aggressive marketing of low cost products from other global companies. As a counter, FleetSol, says Mr. Lam, emphasizes on ‘Make in Malaysia’ concept to put up a stiff fight against the intense competition.
The uptake of mobility solutions is quick and growing steadily in Malaysia, but Mr. Lam feels: “A major pitfall is to know that data can be devoid of information too unless it is processed in the right way.”
As the market matures and more domestic companies develop competitive and economical solutions, CV IoT in Malaysia is surely on the way up and is bound to create a more vibrant ecosystem.