System and Method for Building a Map of CO2 Emissions from Vehicles

System and Method for Building a Map of CO 2 Emissions from Vehicles

A more effective method is needed to collect data and produce a fine grained map of CO2 emissions by vehicles such as cars and trucks. Earlier solutions rely on models to estimate the CO2 emissions and provide only coarse grained estimates. [1] The use of models makes such prior solutions inaccurate.

The disclosed solution is a system and method for building a map of CO2 emissions from vehicles. The core idea of the invention is to use an existing interface [1] to engine sensors to measure fuel consumption in real time and tag it with the location data. The CO2 emissions can then be computed from the fuel consumption measurements using existing mathematical relationships.

The components and steps for implementation include:
1. Data collection
a. Fuel consumption measurements are made using engine sensor interfaces (e.g., OBD-II for all cars and trucks)

b. Measurements are tagged with the global positioning system (GPS) location and time information (e.g., from standard GPS devices)

c. Fuel and location data are transmitted using a cellular data network (via a cell phone) or WiFi (using a WiFi capable device) to the cloud

d. Fuel and location data are logged (e.g., on a OBD scanner) and later uploaded to the cloud

2. Collective CO2 estimates for a given location
a. Case 1: When all vehicles (in a given location) are sharing their fuel consumption data:
Select the vehicles currently in the given loca...