For Fleet Tracking, What is The Difference Between Canbus And OBD?

CANBus (Controller Area Network Bus) is a broadcast-oriented serial bus system that connects field devices (sensors, actuators, controllers, etc.) in a manufacturing plant. Originally developed by the General Motors Corporation of the United States (GM) for the automotive industry, it has increasingly appeared in the manufacturing automation industry for fleet tracking.

CAN-bus (Controller Area Network) is the controller LAN, which is one of the most widely used fields in the world. At first, CAN-bus was designed to communicate between micro-controllers in the automotive environment with the fleet tracking system, exchange information between the vehicle’s electronic control unit ECU, and form an automotive electronic control network.

It is a multi-mode serial communication bus. The basic design specification requires a high bit rate, high anti-interference, and can detect any errors generated. Due to these characteristics of the CAN serial communication bus, it is naturally used in the automotive, manufacturing and aerospace industries.

OBD is the abbreviation of “On-Board Diagnostics” in English. This system will monitor the car’s exhaust gas from the running condition of the engine at any time. If it exceeds the standard, it will immediately issue a warning. When the system fails, the fault (MIL) light or the check engine warning light is on, and the power train control module (PCM) stores the fault information in the memory, and the fault code can be read from the PCM through a certain program. According to the fault code, the maintenance personnel can quickly and accurately determine the nature and location of the fault. Unlike GPS locators, GPS tracker device needs to be connected to the vehicle’s power supply for positioning, and because the lines that can be connected are relatively rich, it is possible to control the vehicle or check the specific in-vehicle condition values.

Another function of OBD is to connect with GPS fleet tracking power, which makes it easy to install GPS fleet tracking devices. for fleet tracking, but the shortcomings of OBD and Canbus are also obvious, they can all look at the positioning, but it is also easy to be taken off the car.

CAN-bus is a car (or any device that uses CAN-bus), the summing line (or interface) of various data, and the data communication inside the car (such as communication between the sensor and the ECU).

OBD is a global standard interface for connecting additional diagnostic tools.

We recommend that you decide which products are suitable for fleet tracking based on your own needs and the price of the product.