Tutorial: Getting started with AWS IoT FleetWise (console)

Use AWS IoT FleetWise to collect, transform, and transfer the unique data format from automated vehicles to the cloud in near real time. You have access to fleet-wide insights. This can help you to efficiently detect and mitigate issues in vehicle health, transfer high-value data signals, and remotely diagnose problems, all while reducing costs.

This tutorial shows you how to get started with AWS IoT FleetWise. You’ll learn how to create a vehicle model (model manifest), a decoder manifest, a vehicle, and a campaign.

For more information about the key components and concepts of AWS IoT FleetWise, see How AWS IoT FleetWise works.

Estimated time: About 45 minutes.

Important

You will be charged for the AWS IoT FleetWise resources that this demo creates and consumes. For more information, see AWS IoT FleetWise in the AWS IoT FleetWise Pricing page.

Prerequisites

To complete this getting started tutorial, you first need the following:

• An AWS account. If you don't have an AWS account, see Creating an AWS account in the AWS Account Management Reference Guide.

• Access to an AWS Region that supports AWS IoT FleetWise. Currently, AWS IoT FleetWise is supported in US East (N. Virginia) and Europe (Frankfurt).

• Amazon Timestream resources:

  • An Amazon Timestream database. For more information, see Create a database in the Amazon Timestream Developer Guide.

  • An Amazon Timestream table created in Amazon Timestream that will hold your data. For more information, see Create a table in the Amazon Timestream Developer Guide.

Step 1: Set up the Edge Agent software for AWS IoT FleetWise

Note

The CloudFormation stack in this step uses telemetry data. You can also create a CloudFormation stack using vision system data. For more information, see the Vision System Data Developer Guide.

Vision system data is in preview release and is subject to change.

Your Edge Agent software for AWS IoT FleetWise facilitates communication between vehicles and the cloud. It receives instructions from data collection schemes on how to collect data from cloud-connected vehicles.

To set up your Edge Agent software, in General information, do the following:

1. Open the Launch CloudFormation Template.

2. On the Quick create stack page, for Stack name, enter the name of your stack of AWS IoT FleetWise resources. A stack is a friendly name that appears as a prefix on the names of the resources this AWS CloudFormation template creates.

3. Under Parameters, enter your custom values for the parameters related to your stack.

   1. Fleetsize ‐ You can increase the number of vehicles in your fleet by updating the Fleetsize parameter.

   2. IoTCoreRegion ‐ You can specify the Region where the AWS IoT thing is created by updating the IoTCoreRegion parameter. You must use the same Region that you used to create your AWS IoT FleetWise vehicles. For more information about AWS Regions, see Regions and Zones - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud.

4. In the Capabilities section, select the box to acknowledge that AWS CloudFormation creates IAM resources.

5. Choose Create stack, then wait approximately 15 minutes for the status of the stack to display CREATE_COMPLETE.

6. To confirm the stack was created, choose the Stack info tab, refresh the view, and look for CREATE_COMPLETE.

Important

You will be charged for the AWS IoT FleetWise resources that this demo creates and consumes. For more information, see AWS IoT FleetWise in the AWS IoT FleetWise Pricing page.

Step 2: Create a vehicle model

Important

You can't create a vehicle model with vision system data signals in the AWS IoT FleetWise console. Instead, use the AWS CLI.

You use vehicle models to standardize the format of your vehicles, and to help define the relationship between signals in the vehicles that you create. A signal catalog is also created when you create a vehicle model. A signal catalog is a collection of standardized signals that can be reused to create vehicle models. Signals are fundamental structures that you define to contain vehicle data and its metadata. At this time, the AWS IoT FleetWise service supports only one signal catalog per AWS Region per account. This helps to verify that data processed from a fleet of vehicles is consistent.

To create a vehicle model

1. Open the AWS IoT FleetWise console.

2. On the navigation pane, choose Vehicle models.

3. On the Vehicle models page, choose Create vehicle model.

4. In the General information section, enter the name of your vehicle model, such as Vehicle1, and an optional description. Then choose Next.

5. Choose one or more signals from the signal catalog. You can filter signals by name in the search catalog, or choose them from the list. For example, you can choose signals for tire pressure and brake pressure so that you can collect data related to these signals. Choose Next.

6. Choose your .dbc files and upload them from your local device. Choose Next.

   Note

   For this tutorial, you can download a sample .dbc file to upload for this step.

7. Add attributes to your vehicle model and then choose Next.

   1. Name ‐ Enter the name of the vehicle attribute, such as the manufacturer name or manufacturing date.

   2. Data Type ‐ On the Data type menu, choose a data type.

   3. Unit ‐ (Optional) Enter a unit value, such as kilometer or Celsius.

   4. Path ‐ (Optional) Enter a name for the path to a signal, such as Vehicle.Engine.Light. The dot (.) indicates that it is a child signal.

   5. Default value ‐ (Optional) Enter a default value.

   6. Description ‐ (Optional) Enter a description of the attribute.

8. Review your configurations. When you're ready, choose Create. A notification appears saying your vehicle model was successfully created.

Step 3: Create a decoder manifest

Decoder manifests are associated with the vehicle models that you create. They contain information that helps AWS IoT FleetWise decode and transform vehicle data from a binary format into human-readable values that can be analyzed. Network interfaces and decoder signals are components that help configure decoder manifests. A network interface contains information about the CAN or OBD protocol that your vehicle network uses. The decoder signal provides decoding information for a specific signal.

To create a decoder manifest

1. Open the AWS IoT FleetWise console.

2. On the navigation pane, choose Vehicle models.

3. In the Vehicle models section, choose the vehicle model that you want to use to create a decoder manifest.

4. Choose Create decoder manifest.

Step 4: Configure a decoder manifest

To configure a decoder manifest

Important

You can't configure vision system data signals in decoder manifests using the AWS IoT FleetWise console. Instead, use the AWS CLI. For more information, see Create a decoder manifest (AWS CLI).

1. To help you identify your decoder manifest, enter a name and an optional description for it. Then, choose Next.

2. To add one or more network interfaces, choose either the CAN_INTERFACE or the OBD_INTERFACE type.

   • On-board diagnostic (OBD) interface ‐ Choose this interface type if you want a protocol that defines how self-diagnostic data is communicated between electronic control units (ECUs). This protocol provides a number of standard diagnostic trouble codes (DTCs) that can help you troubleshoot problems with your vehicle.

   • Controller Area Network (CAN bus) interface ‐Choose this interface type if you want a protocol that defines how data is communicated between ECUs. ECUs can be engine control units, airbags, or the audio system.

3. Enter a network interface name.

4. To add signals to the network interface, choose one or more signals from the list.

5. Choose a decoder signal for the signal you added in the previous step. To provide decoding information, upload a .dbc file. Each signal in the vehicle model must be paired with a decoder signal that you can choose from the list.

6. To add another network interface, choose Add network interface. When you're done adding network interfaces, choose Next.

7. Review your configurations and then choose Create. A notification appears saying your decoder manifest was successfully created.

Step 5: Create a vehicle

In AWS IoT FleetWise, vehicles are virtual representations of your real-life, physical vehicle. All vehicles created from the same vehicle model inherit the same group of signals, and each vehicle that you create corresponds to a newly created IoT thing. You must associate all vehicles with a decoder manifest.

Prerequisites

1. Verify that you’ve already created the vehicle model and decoder manifest. Also, verify that the status of the vehicle model is ACTIVE.

   1. To verify that the status of the vehicle model is ACTIVE, open the AWS IoT FleetWise console.

   2. On the navigation pane, choose Vehicle models.

   3. In the Summary section, under Status, check the status of your vehicle.

To create a vehicle

1. Open the AWS FleetWise console.

2. On the navigation pane, choose Vehicles.

3. Choose Create vehicle.

4. To define the vehicle properties, enter the vehicle name, and then choose a model manifest (vehicle model) and a decoder manifest.

5. (Optional) To define the vehicle attributes, enter a key-value pair and then choose Add attributes.

6. (Optional) To label your AWS resource, add tags and then choose Add new tag.

7. Choose Next.

8. To configure the vehicle certificate, you can either upload your own certificate or choose Auto-generate a new certificate. We recommend auto-generating your certificate for a quicker setup. If you already have a certificate, you can choose to use it instead.

9. Download the public and private key files and then choose Next.

10. To attach a policy to the vehicle certificate, you can either enter an existing policy name or create a new policy. To create a new policy, choose Create policy and then choose Next.

11. Review your configurations. When you’re done, choose Create vehicle.

Step 6: Create a campaign

In AWS IoT FleetWise, campaigns are used to facilitate the selection, collection, and transfer of data from vehicles to the cloud. Campaigns contain data collection schemes that give the Edge Agent software instructions on how to collect data with a condition-based collection scheme or a time-based collection scheme.

To create a campaign

1. Open the AWS IoT FleetWise console.

2. On the navigation pane, choose Campaigns.

3. Choose Create campaign.

4. Enter your campaign name and an optional description.

5. To configure your campaign’s data collection scheme, you can manually define the data collection scheme or upload a .json file from your local device. Uploading a .json file automatically defines the data collection scheme.

   1. To manually define the data collection scheme, choose Define Data Collection Scheme and choose the type of data collection scheme you want to use for your campaign. You can choose either a Condition-based collection scheme or Time-based collection scheme.

   2. If you choose a Time-based collection scheme, you must specify the duration of time that your campaign will collect the vehicle data.

   3. If you choose a condition-based collection scheme, you must specify an expression to recognize what data to collect. Be sure to specify the signal’s name as a variable, a comparison operator, and a comparison value.

   4. (Optional) Choose the language version of your expression, or keep it as the default value of 1.

   5. (Optional) Specify the trigger interval between two data collection events.

   6. To collect data, choose the Trigger mode condition for the Edge Agent software. By default, the Edge Agent for AWS IoT FleetWise software Always collects data whenever the condition is met. Or, it can collect data only when the condition is met for the first time, On first trigger.

   7. (Optional) You can choose more advanced scheme options.

6. To specify the signals that the data collection scheme will collect data from, search for the name of the signal from the menu.

7. (Optional) You can choose a maximum sample count or minimum sampling interval. You can also add more signals.

8. Choose Next.

9. Define the storage destination that you want the campaign to transfer data to. You can store data in Amazon S3 or Amazon Timestream.

   1. Amazon S3 – Choose the S3 bucket that AWS IoT FleetWise has permissions to.

   2. Amazon Timestream – choose the Timestream database and table name. Enter an IAM role that allows AWS IoT FleetWise to send data to Timestream.

10. Choose Next.

11. Choose vehicle attributes or vehicle names from the search box.

12. Enter the value related to the attribute or name that you chose for your vehicle.

13. Choose the vehicles that your campaign will collect data from. Then, choose Next.

14. Review the configurations of your campaign and then choose Create campaign. You or your team must deploy the campaign to vehicles.

Step 7: Clean up

To avoid further charges for the resources you used during this tutorial, delete the AWS CloudFormation stack and all stack resources.

To delete the AWS CloudFormation stack

1. Open the AWS CloudFormation console.

2. From the list of Stacks, choose the stack that you created in step 1.

3. Choose Delete.

4. To confirm deletion, choose Delete. The stack takes around 15 minutes to delete.

Next steps

1. You can process and visualize the vehicle data that your campaign collects. For more information, see Processing and visualizing vehicle data.

2. You can troubleshoot and resolve issues with AWS IoT FleetWise. For more information, see Troubleshooting AWS IoT FleetWise.