Engineers at the Cummins Advanced Virtual
Environment (CAVE) and similar company locations use virtual reality (VR) to investigate serviceability issues on future products as well as investigate new technology, Tuttle added. Mike Hughes, Cummins manager of modeling and simulation services for corporate research and technology, said VR is important to easing engine service. VR enables engineers to see an engine at true scale, enabling changes to be made early in the design process. The CAVE features plastic devices users can hold that appear in VR goggles, such as as human hands, wrenches and drills. These views enable designers to determine how easy or difficult it would be to access a particular section of an engine or a part. New technology that aids in school bus repairs and inspections also includes RealWear, a network- connected, head-mounted device that allows users the ability to run applications hands-free through a phone or tablet, input information through voice recognition, and communicate with subject matter experts through remote collaboration, Tuttle said. Retail prices start at $2,500 not including accessories. Microsoft’s HoloLens, meanwhile, has all the
functionality of RealWear with the added benefit of spatial recognition, enabling users to manipulate virtual 3D objects. Hololens retails at $3,500. School bus maintenance departments may also
benefit from extended reality, which includes VR as well as augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR), both of which blend the real-world with a computer-generated one. Then there is Artificial Intelligence (AI), Robotic Process Automation (RPA), robotics, and apps. Tuttle said Cummins has multiple ongoing projects testing the efficacy of these technologies in the workplace. Another tool is Retrieval Augmented Generation
(RAG), the process of optimizing output from a large language model that references an authoritative knowledge base—for example, real vehicle data collected from vehicle manufacturers—rather than general purpose generative AI (ChatGPT, for example) to predict answers from stored diagnostic patterns. . Data security results from being tied to each respective
customer. There is no data leakage to or from other customers, which otherwise might pollute and/or create data security issues, said Gordon Waddell, senior vice president of product development at Zonar. Zonar FaultIQ powered by Noregon is a single online
predictive maintenance platform for monitoring fleet health. Key features include components of all makes and models; customizable alerts; vehicle health and safety scores; fault severity levels; expert-recommended action
36 School Transportation News • AUGUST 2024
plans for each fault; Zonar Ground Traffic Control for fleet health and safety management; and 24/7, 365-day U.S.- based technical support from Zonar. Each vehicle’s location is indicated in the dashboard’s
map view. When a vehicle indicates a fault, the platform can help find a nearby fueling station, repair shop, dealer, or parts distributor. Text and email alerts can be set up to alert users of future issues. FaultIQ also enables users to see which faults impact
compliance and safety scores, fuel economy and emissions. Noregon’s data team analyzes historical fault data
that consistently escalates into downstream faults with predictions updated and improved monthly as a fleet maintenance early warning system. For bus transportation operations concerned about
privacy, Waddell explained that Zonar uses Google Cloud products with a strong commitment to privacy with AI models. For example, tracking all speeding events for the last month are private. While they can inform future answers, they are isolated to a particular end user and not part of a general database where leakage is a risk. “We constantly evaluate the ability of AI to provide
trustworthy information,” he added. Techniques such as RAG augments the content by
building from actual data regarding routes, buses and ridership to give an answer from a subset of answers known to be correct, Waddell shared. Asking the right question produces an answer that
collects a lot of data, learns from it, and examines patterns in diagnostics that look for a specific event and how to prevent it from happening. These are data points that lead to a possible conclusion, Waddell said, adding technology can determine factors that require further examination and bring those to the attention of the fleet manager. A mobile interface offers significant functionality,
supplemented with enhancements like a chatbot or voice system, to drive summary and reporting questions, Waddell noted. Meanwhile, the STN survey noted that many
maintenance facilities utilize technology to streamline repairs, although most respondents said their school bus facilities are not yet paper-free. Celina Independent School District in Celina, Texas
utilizes Google sheets with a mileage countdown. Beaverton School District in Oregon streamlines
repairs through parts planning and tracking, computerized work orders, and vehicle telematics. Unlike most other districts, Beaverton uses software to order new parts, with that software providing a notification on the timing. “Having telematics allows us to see a fault code and pull
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