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When the New Zealand Police chose Wade Group to fit‑out their operational vehicles, it involved fitting out several hundred vehicles per year. Wade chose to partner with Bentech to develop, manufacture and support their own proprietary Emergency Vehicle Control System (EVCS) to be fitted to all these vehicles and more.
The EVCS Pro Tool is a bespoke computer program developed to configure, update, diagnose and report on all hardware fitted as part of the EVCS system installed in any vehicle. The tool was developed in order to meet the rapid technological advances in modern vehicles and how we interface with them.
The EVCS Pro Tool is a Windows Forms .NET Framework application written in C# using Visual Studio, to be run on the Windows operating system from Windows 7 and upwards. The software communicates to the EVCS hardware via a USB serial port interface and a custom communication protocol.
A secure Application Programming Interface (API) was developed on a hosted Microsoft Azure application service connected to an SQL database for distributing firmware updates, submitting diagnostic reports and managing user access and permissions.
A large range of features can be customised from within the tool, ranging from hardware level configuration such as input/output polarity and pull‑up resistors, to enabling more advanced functionality like operating modes and special vehicle feature packs. Pre‑defined vehicle profiles allow the installation technician to quickly and easily configure the system on the production line and/or customise the settings as necessary.
By offering the software to all Wade service agents, this allows Wade Group to receive diagnostic reports from vehicles anywhere in the world. A technician can submit a report from the EVCS Tool via the cloud to be reviewed immediately by a support agent. The report contains the current system status, configuration and diagnostics log and is then loaded into the agent’s instance of the EVCS Pro Tool as if connected to the system directly. This allows the agent to diagnose the issue accurately and promptly.
A dynamic user access system was developed that allows an administrator to create and manage users and modify permissions at any time. An administrator can allow each user access to a different set of features within the software, ensuring service agents only have access to the simple functions required. Greater access can be given under certain circumstances if required.
The firmware of all system modules can be updated by a technician while connected to the system via USB. Firmware updates are managed directly within the tool by a system admin and securely distributed via the cloud to technicians in the field. Firmware for the EVCS modules is constantly being developed with enhancements and additional features, and new versions are available to the network of service agents immediately upon release.
Updating the firmware in the EVCS system is critical in order to support new vehicles, add new features, modify existing functionality or to fix bugs. With a fleet over over 4000 vehicles, a reliable system was required to ensure updates could be distributed to the nationwide dealer support network.
A proprietary cloud service was developed alongside the EVCS Pro Tool software package, allowing management of users, firmware and diagnostics logs.
The firmware updates are loaded into the EVCS Pro Tool by an administrator and assigned to users based on their roles. These firmware updates are then available immediately and can be loaded into a vehicle’s EVCS system at a click of a button.
“Working closely with Bentech has been an enjoyable experience and has seen a relationship grow that is favourable to both companies.
The team at Bentech are professional, reliable and like us, are focused on delivering innovative and quality product to their clients. We see this partnership continuing for many years to come.”
Neil Robinson
Operations Manager
Wade Group
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