Data processing: vehicles – navigation – and relative location – Vehicle control – guidance – operation – or indication – Vehicle diagnosis or maintenance indication
Reexamination Certificate
1999-08-26
2003-09-02
Black, Thomas G. (Department: 3661)
Data processing: vehicles, navigation, and relative location
Vehicle control, guidance, operation, or indication
Vehicle diagnosis or maintenance indication
C073S117020, C714S046000, C340S439000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06615119
ABSTRACT:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION
The present application is related to, and claims priority from, Japanese Patent Application No. Hei. 10-264830, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a vehicle controller, and more specifically, to a vehicle controller diagnostic apparatus for detecting abnormalities in vehicle sensors, actuators, or the like via an object-oriented based methodology.
2. Related Art
A conventional vehicle controller is disclosed, for example, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. Hei 7-91310, and includes a self-diagnosis apparatus for detecting abnormalities in the engine-control system. When an abnormality is detected, an indicator lamp is illuminated to prompt the driver with a warning, or an abnormality code indicating the abnormal location is output to an external diagnosis apparatus to allow an operator at a dealer or service shop to specify the location of the abnormality.
FIG. 18
illustrates a memory area for an abnormality flag, a flag for lamp-illuminating use, and an abnormality-code flag according to a conventional self-diagnosis apparatus such as the one discussed above. Additionally,
FIG. 19
illustrates a table for abnormality-code determining use. As shown in
FIG. 18
, to illuminate an indicator lamp and output an abnormality code, flag information for each use and application thereof is stored within a memory within the electronic controller.
In
FIG. 18
, (A) indicates a memory area for storing a present abnormality flag, and bit positions within this memory area are programmed in correspondence with each abnormality-detection target. Namely, the first bit is the bit position for water-temperature sensor use, the second bit is the bit position for intake-air temperature sensor use, the third bit is the bit position for throttle-sensor use, and the fourth bit is the bit position for ECT-solenoid use. Accordingly, when an abnormality is detected by an abnormality-detection routine (not illustrated), the bit information corresponding to the abnormality-detection target changes from “0” to “1.”
Additionally, (B) indicates a memory area for storing a flag for indicator-lamp illuminating use, and the information relating to the flag for indicator-lamp illuminating use is constantly updated with the bit information at the present abnormality flag (A) at every iteration of a predetermined time interval. When even a single datum indicating an abnormality exists in the bit information within the flag area for indicator-lamp illuminating use, the indicator lamp is illuminated.
Furthermore, (C) indicates a memory area for storing the abnormality-code flag, and is constantly updated with the abnormality-code flag information and the bit information at the present abnormality flag (A) at every iteration of a predetermined time interval. This information is then capable of being read out to an external portion by an operator at a dealer or service shop performing a desired operation.
Further, because specification of which component is abnormal is not possible even when the information of the abnormality-code flag is output without modification, generally, as shown in
FIG. 19
, a table relating the bit positions of the abnormality-code flag and output codes is provided within the electronic controller, and a code converted according to this table is read out to an external portion. For example, when an abnormality has occurred in the water-temperature sensor, a code of “11” is output.
In this way, with a failure-diagnosis apparatus according to the prior art,
1) the correspondence relationship (the first bit being the water-temperature sensor, and so on) of the bit-position information of the respective flag areas of the present abnormality flag, the flag for indicator-lamp illuminating use, and so on is equivalent. As a result, the respective abnormality-detection information bit-by-bit can be copied (processed) bit by bit.
2) A memory area is disposed in each respective use object, such as the object for storing a presently-occurring abnormality, the object for performing lamp indication, and the like, and all abnormality-detection target information is caused to be concentrated in the several memory areas. Therefore, the number of accesses wherein batch processing can be performed is reduced, and memory capacity can be reduced. For example, when an abnormality detection result with the ignition key in an “off” state is caused to be invalid to prevent erroneous detection of an abnormality, achievement is possible by setting the respective bit information of the present abnormality flag to “0” as a block.
However, with the above-described apparatus, modification of everything from the definitions of the bits of the respective memory areas to the various types of tables as shown in
FIG. 19
is necessary when an abnormality-detection program is applied in a different engine-control system, or when the number of abnormality-detection targets are increased due to application-specific changes.
For example, when settings of an automobile with a manual transmission (M/T) are expanded in an automobile with an automatic transmission (A/T), tasks to delete the bits and settings relating to the A/T-control solenoid, to add M/T-dedicate diagnoses, and so on are necessary. For this reason, program-development man-hours are increased. Moreover, unless all such modifications are completed, verification of program operation (debugging) becomes difficult.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In view of the above-discussed limitations, it is an object of the present invention to provide a vehicle controller self-diagnosis apparatus in which modification of areas such as memory information, tables, and the like relating to abnormality-detection processing can be easily made even when abnormal-detection targets are increased or decreased, thereby minimizing the time and effort required to implement such programming changes.
Specifically, the present invention provides a vehicle controller diagnostic apparatus with a plurality of abnormality-detection objects each associated with a discrete detection target. Each of the abnormality-detection objects includes an abnormality-detection program and a first data-storing portion for storing data on the corresponding detection target during detection of a detection target abnormality. Also, an abnormality processing object is provided for performing abnormality-occurrence processing with respect to the corresponding detection targets based on data in the first data-storing portion of each of the abnormality-detection objects.
The abnormality processing object performs the above-described processing independently of the number of abnormality-detection objects that are implemented, thereby enabling abnormality-detection objects to be added or deleted as application parameters change.
REFERENCES:
patent: 4497057 (1985-01-01), Kato et al.
patent: 5671141 (1997-09-01), Smith et al.
patent: WO 97/13064 (1997-04-01), None
Black Thomas G.
Donnelly Arthur D.
Nixon & Vanderhye PC
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