VEHICLE CONTROL UNIT
THE BRAINS OF YOUR VEHICLE. SMALL FORM FACTOR. FULLY OPEN. YOURS TO UPGRADE AND PROGRAM
Most vehicle controllers (VCU or sometimes - ECU) on the market are excessively large and built as fully closed ecosystems — leaving OEMs, contract manufacturers and integrators with no control over how they behave and no room to modify existing systems or expand in the future.
EDL's VCU changes that. Every sensor, motor, actuator, and light your vehicle needs, working together on a single compact board — and it's yours to program, expand, and update however you want. No black boxes, no dead ends. Just the brain of your vehicle, finally in your hands, ready for whatever you dream up next.
VEHICLE CONTROL UNIT
THE BRAINS OF YOUR VEHICLE. SMALL FORM FACTOR. FULLY OPEN. YOURS TO UPGRADE AND PROGRAM
Most vehicle controllers (VCU or ECU) on the market are excessively large and built as fully closed ecosystems — leaving OEMs, contract manufacturers and integrators with no control over how they behave and no room to modify existing systems or expand in the future.
EDL's VCU changes that. Every sensor, motor, actuator, and light your vehicle needs, working together on a single compact board — and it's yours to program, expand, and update however you want. No black boxes, no dead ends. Just the brain of your vehicle, finally in your hands, ready for whatever you dream up next.
TURN YOUR VEHICLE INTO A SOFTWARE DEFINED VEHICLE
The VCU is built to make disparate hardware work together — no converters, level shifters, or adapters required. Most vehicle builds fall apart at exactly the point where devices with different protocols and voltages have to communicate.
Our VCU handles that natively. The onboard microcontroller reads both digital and analog signals and speaks CAN out of the box, so disparate sensors and devices integrate directly — no translation layer required. It accepts any input voltage up to 100V and supplies both 5V and 12V outputs, powering and interfacing with mixed hardware from a single unit. There's also bluetooth, wifi and 4G/LTE if you prefer wireless comms
Whatever combination of sensors, actuators, motors, and lights your vehicle runs, they connect to one board and simply work together.
NETWORKING & IoT
This compact VCU is designed for modularity. It is networkable, communicating wired or wirelessly with multiple VCUs on the same vehicle or between multiple vehicles allowing for modular intelligent components, and scalable architectures.
VCU IoT Features
Hardware
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Modular daughter board — Full IoT capability inside the existing enclosure; no change to exterior dimensions
-
Onboard battery backup — Stays powered and reporting even when main power is cut
Connectivity & location
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GPS tracking — Real-time vehicle location
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4G/LTE connectivity — Always-on cellular link, no external gateway
Security
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Theft prevention — Stays trackable even when main power is cut
-
Geofencing — Set boundaries, get alerts when a vehicle leaves its zone
Fleet management
-
Remote monitoring & diagnostics — Check status and diagnose issues remotely
-
OTA updates — Push firmware and features fleet-wide, no physical access
-
Usage analytics — Insight into how vehicles are used, deployed, and serviced
-
Third-party integration — Feeds VCU data into your existing fleet platforms
PROGRAM IT YOURSELF
The VCU isn't a black box you're stuck with. It's yours to program.
Tune responsiveness, controllability, and how the vehicle reacts to the driver. Define custom behaviors for whatever special sensors, lights, actuators, and motors you're running. Adjust, test, and refine until the finished build does exactly what you designed it to do — responsive, safe, and effective.
And it's not just the software that's open. The hardware can be expanded and tailored too — add a cellular communications module for GPS, 4G/LTE, and remote features, bring in the components your build calls for, and grow the board's capabilities as your vehicle evolves. Do you require more CAN lines? No problem, we have a board for that.
Add a sensor, change a behavior, support a new component, push an update over the air. The same board that runs your vehicle today unleashes a world of future possibilities — in hardware and software alike — whenever you're ready to build them.
NETWORKING & IoT
This compact VCU is designed for modularity. It is networkable, and communicate wirelessly with multiple VCUs on the same vehicle or between multiple vehicles allowing for modular intelligent components, and scalable architectures
Hardware
-
Modular daughter board — Full IoT capability inside the existing enclosure; no change to exterior dimensions
-
Onboard battery backup — Stays powered and reporting even when main power is cut
Connectivity & location
-
GPS tracking — Real-time vehicle location
-
4G/LTE connectivity — Always-on cellular link, no external gateway
Security
-
Theft prevention — Stays trackable even when main power is cut
-
Geofencing — Set boundaries, get alerts when a vehicle leaves its zone
Fleet management
-
Remote monitoring & diagnostics — Check status and diagnose issues remotely
-
OTA updates — Push firmware and features fleet-wide, no physical access
-
Usage analytics — Insight into how vehicles are used, deployed, and serviced
-
Third-party integration — Feeds VCU data into your existing fleet platforms
AS USED IN PROJECT LIGHTFOOT
Lightfoot, a solar-powered electric cargo scooter designed by Otherlab for short-distance travel and deliveries. It features 120W solar panels providing 3 miles of range per hour, a 20 mph top speed, and 37 miles of total range.
