Advantech Trek-550 industrial in-vehicle dedicated box computer

Advantech has announced Trek-550, an industrial in-vehicle dedicated box computer which when placed in trucks, buses, vehicle fleets and taxis, can be connected to a variety of monitoring systems such as onboard diagnostics, a car area network and tyre pressure monitoring systems.

Built-in wireless communications (WWAN, WLAN, Bluetooth) allow the device to send data back to a central site, as well as receive over-the-air updates and communicate with central dispatch.

The computer is ISO7637/SAE J1455 Class A/SAE J1113 certified and can operate in extreme temperatures and transient power conditions. The dual-audio and video outputs allow independent displays such as the Trek-303 to be attached, providing in-cab or passenger display applications.

It receives vehicle diagnostic information using the OBD-II protocol and supports J1708, a serial communications standard which allows it to communicate over a serial port to other vehicle electronic control units.

It also supports the newer J1939 standard allowing it to communicate via twisted pair to a variety of vehicle components over a CAN bus.

The device overcomes limitations in two ways: assisted GPS, where positioning data is sent to the unit using GPRS communications from an AGPS server; and dead reckoning, where the vehicle continues to update its position based on velocity and gyroscopic calculations.

The computer has two video-in ports to support a rear view monitor.

The device supports Windows CE 6.0, XP and Linux and it is compatible with the Trek-303 smart vehicle display.