Jonas Kuschel

My name is Jonas Kuschel and I am a Ph.D. candidate at the IT University of Gothenburg. My research focuses on understanding the development of IT services in the vehicle industry. Most industries motivate technology paradigms by highlighting the possibility of enabling novel services that secure the return on investment. This may apply to the telecommunication industry and its enormous investments in UMTS technology with future revenues from mobile services or, as in my case, to the vehicle industry’s ambition to wirelessly connect the vehicle network to facilitate services such as remote vehicle diagnostics. In both cases, the foreseen services have not emerged as expected. My research thus aims to contribute with a conceptional foundation of developing IT services in the vehicle industry. 

Vehicles are probably one of the most mature ubiquitous computing environments. An increasing number of sensors and microcomputers control, measure and operate various vehicle components. The sensor data facilitates ubiquitous services, such as airbag inflation or injection control, which we take for granted when driving. However, most ubiquitous vehicle services are limited to the vehicle per se, even though there is a demand for making use of vehicle sensor data remotely. Remote vehicle diagnostics is one of the more prominent services the vehicle industry is heading for, but has yet not succeeded with. My thesis aims to understand what currently challenges the design and development of these remote vehicle services and how infrastructure technology and the underlying understanding of services may foster the innovation of vehicle services.