Challenge
Meeting the demands of the low-carbon economy
Transport capacity and pollution are an ever-growing problem in cities around the world. By 2025, London and
other major cities will only be allowed to buy zero-emission buses. Also, all of London’s bus fleets must be
upgraded to the Euro VI standard by 2020, with all ultra-low emission zone vehicles either electric or
hybrid. The new legislation will require detailed data reports to prove these conditions have been met.
Vantage Power designs technologies that connect and electrify the powertrains for heavy-duty vehicles,
incorporating their own lithium-ion battery pack. The company needed a solution that would allow
manufacturers of heavy-duty vehicles and vehicles systems to go-to-market faster. Additionally, OEMs and
operators needed a way of tracking the vehicle control software, post-deployment, to monitor the lithium-ion
battery systems.
Solution
Accelerating time-to-market and compliance controls
Vantage Power worked with Luxoft (an AWS Partner Network Advanced Consulting partner) to create VPVision -
an innovative telemetry platform. VPVision brings the AWS cloud platform to each connected vehicle,
providing Vantage Power customers with an overview of each vehicle’s powertrain components, including
batteries, control systems, engines, motors, and electric generators.
VPVision is built around an IoT architecture (AWS IoT Core, AWS Greengrass, and AWS IoT Analytics), then
combined with Amazon Simple Storage Services (Amazon S3) and AWS Lambda. This optimizes the processing of
hundreds of thousands of data points per minute. In turn, it provides OEMs and operators with valuable
insights, allowing them to create predictive maintenance models and implement real-time preventative action.
Here are just six of VPVision’s benefits:
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The system monitors everything from vehicle speed to engine health and battery-pack-level
diagnostics. It enables operators and OEMs to receive insight and reporting for over 6,000 data
points from each vehicle.
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VPVision collects, processes, stores, and presents real-time vehicle data, automatically, via
the cloud.
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It enables real-time geolocation visualization and two-way communication between fleet managers
and drivers.
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When routine maintenance is required, real-time alerts keep downtime to a minimum.
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It leverages IoT components from AWS such as IoT Analytics, Greengrass ML, Sagemaker, and many
more.
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The team developed a machine learning model that used AWS IoT Sagemaker Notebooks to analyze
‘idle time’ and ‘vehicle location’ data, automatically.
Result
Real-time insight, and connecting vehicles to the cloud
Luxoft provided Vantage Power with the technical expertise, domain experience, and scale, to build a unique
solution that:
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Limits the time vehicles are in maintenance shops, reducing operational costs by over 80%.
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Quickens time-to-market for OEMs by six months.
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Lowers overall costs by streamlining aftermarket support with centralized, real-time data.
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Identifies the ideal time and location for lithium-ion battery balancing, extending the
operational life of a battery by around 10%.
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Reduces costs and admin through the application of edge computing and remote diagnostics which
analyze data, on-vehicle, and report back issues that need attention.
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Thanks to scenario modelling, plus early cell-level fault detection and mitigation, customers
can avoid battery replacements which could cost over $50,000 per bus.
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Complies with new emissions regulations.
Working together, AWS and Luxoft developed a fully-operational solution that has been improving the cost
control and performance of a growing fleet of retrofit buses.
