Data processing: vehicles – navigation – and relative location – Vehicle control – guidance – operation – or indication
Reexamination Certificate
2000-05-24
2003-11-11
Nguyen, Thu (Department: 3661)
Data processing: vehicles, navigation, and relative location
Vehicle control, guidance, operation, or indication
Reexamination Certificate
active
06647323
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates to on-board vehicle controllers. More specifically, the present invention relates to an on-board vehicle control method and apparatus that is able to detect electronic devices such as remote development, diagnostic and software tools on a vehicle network.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
An area in the auto industry seeing tremendous change from past practices is the area of control and communication in vehicles. The creation of relatively inexpensive microprocessors and the digital revolution have put the power of advanced electronics and communication into the hands of vehicle engineers. Controllers, microprocessors and other electronic devices control and monitor various systems in a vehicle such as the transmission, the internal combustion engine, braking systems, and other related systems. The information stored on the controllers in the vehicle must be accessed by remote electronic devices such as development, diagnostic, and software tools (“tools”) during testing and programming. The tools are used to monitor and modify vehicle process variables and other vehicle data during testing and maintenance activities. The vehicle process variables and data indicate if the on-board electronic systems of the vehicle are functioning correctly and also control certain vehicle functions.
Vehicle controllers storing various vehicle process variables and data may be required to interface with a myriad of tools having numerous communication protocols. The communication protocols may vary from tool to tool as a function of manufacturer, and vehicle controller to vehicle controller as a function of vehicle makes, models, or model years. Conventional vehicle controllers have limited communication flexibility and are only capable of communicating with a limited amount of tools under a specific communication protocol. In some cases, a vehicle controller must be manually configured to communicate with a specific diagnostic tool or vice-versa. Diagnostic test time and expense increase significantly when a vehicle controller and/or diagnostic tool are manually reconfigured to communicate.
Accordingly, because of the limited flexibility of present day diagnostic tools and vehicle controllers, it would be desirable to provide a vehicle controller that can detect a diagnostic tool and automatically reconfigure for communication with that diagnostic tool.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In accordance with the present invention, an on-board vehicle controller is automatically configurable for one or more diagnostic tools, using only one set of diagnostic tool processing routines or software. The method and apparatus of the present invention provide a means to detect the type of diagnostic tool that is requesting information from the vehicle controller and configuring the vehicle controller to communicate with the diagnostic tool. After the controller has detected the diagnostic tool, the controller formats requests from each specific diagnostic tool, having a specific communication link and tool format, to a general format for processing. After a tool request is processed, the response is formatted into the form required by the requesting tool. A default communication link/tool is predefined and the software resets the diagnostic tool type back to the default configuration after a variable calibration time period has elapsed since the first request was received from the nondefault tool. After the variable calibration time-out period has elapsed, any tool recognized by the software can then be reconnected and automatically identified.
The present invention reduces the amount of vehicle controller memory resources that are required to support additional diagnostic tool interfaces. For example, one set of general diagnostic tool request processing software or algorithms can be used to support more than one type of vehicle communication link
etwork and diagnostic tool, with approximately the same amount of memory usage. This gives vehicle controllers with limited memory resources the ability to support multiple diagnostic tools. In addition, use of this invention substantially improves controller software maintainability by eliminating redundant communication software for multiple communication protocols.
The on-board vehicle controller of the present invention provides a dynamic method and apparatus to detect and communicate with multiple tools that are attached and detached to a vehicle communication network. The vehicle controller includes communication specific hardware and software that are able to receive and transmit information over a plurality of standard communication protocols such as IES-CAN, GMLAN, KWP2000, J1850, and J1939. The communication link specific software is contained in a first datalink
etwork layer that interfaces to a second applications layer which is functionally independent of the communication protocol. The vehicle controller software is capable of interfacing with remote development, diagnostic, and software tools having multiple communication protocols.
The vehicle controller of the present invention monitors a vehicle communication network for messages or requests by diagnostic tools for vehicle data. The vehicle controller includes communication link/interface receive buffers for the communication networks linked to the vehicle controller to determine if diagnostic tools are present on the communication network. Every message from a diagnostic tool includes an identifier which defines the message priority, the address of the diagnostic tool that sent the message, and information describing the requested data. The vehicle controller detects the message, via the receive buffers, and stores the ID or address of the tool and then transmits the requested vehicle data to the diagnostic tool. Thus, the vehicle controller of the present invention has a “plug and play” configuration. The diagnostic tool is plugged into the vehicle communication network, the vehicle controller detects the diagnostic tool, and the vehicle controller transmits data requested by the diagnostic tool without manual intervention.
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Robinson Timothy Alan
Stewart James H
DeVries Christopher
General Motors Corporation
Nguyen Thu
LandOfFree
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