ESP32-Based CAN Bus Analyzer
Description
Vehicle diagnostic and CAN bus monitoring systems play an important role in vehicle maintenance, operational assessment, and fault detection. However, collecting and interpreting OBD-II/CAN data often depends on commercial devices that are costly, closed-source, limited in scalability, and difficult to integrate with modern data analysis platforms. We present a Vehicle Telemetry and Diagnostic Reader based on the ESP32, a low-cost, flexible, and easy-to-deploy hardware and software platform for reading, transmitting, and visualizing CAN/OBD-II data. The device supports CAN bus communication, Wi-Fi data transmission via WebSocket, network configuration through a web interface, non-volatile storage for system settings, and compatibility with the Lawicel protocol for CAN frame analysis. Data from the device can be integrated with Node-RED, InfluxDB, and Grafana to build a real-time monitoring pipeline, store telemetry data, display dashboards, monitor diagnostic trouble codes (DTCs), and support fault-clearing functions. With its open, extensible design, the system is suitable for testing, research, and educational environments, providing a standardized solution for vehicle data acquisition, analysis, and visualization while supporting technical diagnostics and the development of intelligent vehicle monitoring applications.