Method and system to determine vehicle type identification through diagnostic port

A method carried out in a system, the system comprising at least a Diagnosis plug-in device, a host server, one or more diagnostics database suppliers, one or more on-board ECUs located on-board a vehicle of interest, the method comprising:

• /a/ coupling the diagnosis plug-in device to a diagnosis port of the vehicle of interest, said vehicle of interest having a certain vehicle type, said vehicle type being defined at least by the Make and Model and Year and Powertrain of the vehicle of interest,
• /b/ causing the diagnosis plug-in device to listen on at least one diagnosis bus accessible on the diagnosis port, receive frames broadcasted by the one or more on-board ECUs and detect therefrom a Bus Active condition, the frames received each having a received frame-ID,
• /c/ after said Bus Active condition is verified, at the diagnosis plug-in device, determining an instant frame profile according to characteristics of the received frame-IDs of the frames received,
• /d1/ determining vehicle type from the instant frame profile, with the help of a frame profile lookup table held in the diagnosis plug-in device and/or in the host server, or /d2/, whenever no vehicle type corresponds to the instant frame profile in the frame profile lookup table, then performing a VIN request sequence to alternately retrieve vehicle type,
• /e/ providing a diagnosis stacks dataset database at the diagnosis plug-in device and/or at the host server, comprising, for each recorded vehicle type, a diagnosis stacks dataset or a link thereto, said diagnosis stacks dataset comprising at least available request/answer services for the vehicle type of interest,
• /f/ if the diagnosis stacks dataset corresponding to this vehicle type is already available in the diagnosis stacks dataset database, proceeding to step /h/, otherwise proceeding to step /g/ and then step /h/,
• /g/ sending the vehicle type to one of the diagnostics database suppliers, and receiving in return a diagnosis stacks dataset,
• /h/ carrying out the request/answer services defined by the diagnosis stacks dataset to write requests on the diagnosis bus and retrieving, in the corresponding answers, various data from the one or more on-board ECUs, and reporting such data in a decoded form to a client fleet management system.