ECE.06R – Telematics Cooling System and Testing Environment Abstract

• Isabella Battaglia
• Autum Hosticka
• Sabrina Ng
• Carolina Wozniczka

Our project sponsor, an OEM telematics provider, has embarked on the development process of an automotive telematics cooling system using a Peltier in hot environments, such as Death Valley, California. Cars are often parked in the hot sun for many hours at a time, which can overheat the telematics system. Our sponsor is interested in addressing chip operability in situations like these to provide better functionality to users; for instance, a driver would be able to remote-start their car engine from inside an airport after returning from a long trip, or make an emergency call even if the car was overheating. Scenarios like this display a distinct need to maintain operating temperatures of telematics chips without requiring active vehicle operation. The objective of this project was to design a comprehensive testing environment and cooling device which is used to simulate hot environments and their impact on two placeholder chips, in an enclosed system. These placeholder chips replace our sponsor’s telematic printed circuit board that are cooled. Testing and measurement of this system promotes developments of an optimal chip-cooling technique. For the system, we designed two parts that operate as the simulation for the environment and the cooling of the chips. The simulation portion allows the user to provide different power levels to the placeholder chips and displays the wattage on an OLED screen. This allows for testing the efficiency of our cooling system in different scenarios. The cooling portion provides the controls for the fans and Peltier that will be determined based on the different testing scenarios. It also includes temperature sensors on various components to provide data back to the testing scenarios. The OLED is included to display the current and voltage readings of both components to understand the amount of power used for cooling the system. This design allows for a variety of tests to be performed while receiving feedback from all aspects of our system. By collecting temperature and power data for the components we integrated into our design we can assess the effectiveness of our final cooling system.