Driving overloaded trucks is a big business. Just 16-percent overload allows saving each 6th trip. This is profitable. Of course, if the police catch truckers with overloaded vehicles, they have to pay fines. But only a few are stopped and the fines are not that high. The profit is still much higher, even if you consider multiple fines per year.

Overloaded trucks hurt the highways and roads. You have to renovate them more frequently. But this is a minor issue: More serious are accidences with overloaded vehicles. The trucks need longer brake-paths and in worst-case they cause more severe and deathly injuries. This is why the European Parliament and the European Commission request improved methods to detect overloaded trucks and trailers. Best would be that governmental authorities can measure the weight when the trucks are passing. Ideally would be a wireless transmission of the weight.

The weight is anyway measured in modern trucks and trailers. The load values are available in the CAN-based in-vehicle networks. What needed is to provide this measurement cyber-secured to a wireless interface. CiA has developed two CANopen device profiles, which can be used for this purpose. The CiA 459 profile series (on-board weighing device) and CiA 461 series (weighing devices) have been partly released respectively are still under development. The CiA 461 series specifies load-cells and displays. They are connected to the on-board weighing device. Cyber-secure transmission is an optional feature. The CiA 459 compliant device can communicate via CANopen to other CANopen-compatible sub-system, e.g. a gateway device to the J1939-based in-vehicle networks or the ISO 16844 compliant CAN tachograph network.