Data processing: vehicles – navigation – and relative location – Vehicle control – guidance – operation – or indication – Vehicle diagnosis or maintenance indication
Reexamination Certificate
1998-07-22
2001-08-28
Zanelli, Michael J. (Department: 3661)
Data processing: vehicles, navigation, and relative location
Vehicle control, guidance, operation, or indication
Vehicle diagnosis or maintenance indication
C701S033000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06282469
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is directed to computerized automotive service equipment. More specifically, the present invention is directed to a system and method for communicating wheel angle or other vehicle diagnostic information between vehicle sensors and a host computer.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Items of computerized automotive service equipment generally incorporate sensors located at the vehicle to provide indications of a vehicle's diagnostic state. For instance, wheel aligners utilize vehicle wheel angle sensors. Sometimes the sensors are not necessarily located at the vehicle, but are incorporated into an extravehicular apparatus, such as load unbalance detectors in wheel balancers. Recent designs have implemented personal computers in automotive service equipment. The current methods for coupling these sensors to the personal computer that performs the diagnostic evaluations and/or displays are through the computer's standard ports. In a modem PC, these include the serial port, the parallel port and internal ISA or PCI expansion slots (via an add-in board). The serial communications and parallel printer ports are the most convenient since they are standard on all PC's. Unfortunately, an operating system such as WINDOWS 3.1 or WINDOWS 95 typically expects that a printer, mouse, or modem is connected to serial communications and parallel printer ports. Connection of sensors to these ports often leads to conflicts in port addresses and available interrupts. Connecting sensors to the serial communications port is convenient but can be slow. Connecting sensors to the parallel printer port allows faster data transmission than the serial communications port but an additional printer port must then be added if a printer is desired. This again can lead to conflicts in port addresses and available interrupts. In both cases, to use a serial communications port or parallel printer port, a person knowledgeable about computers would most likely be required to configure the computer to support the connection of a sensor system.
An add-in sensor interface board allows very fast access to sensor information. Unfortunately, adding this board to a PC still requires a person knowledgeable of the computer to configure addresses and interrupts so there are no conflicts. Additionally, the physical layout of expansion slots is subject to change over time as newer models and protocols are developed, leading to obsolescence of current interface board specifications. Typically operating systems have no built-in support for a custom add-in board. Thus complex software must be written allowing the operating system and the automotive service program to communicate with the add-in board. This complex software must be re-written with the introduction of new, updated operating systems.
Still another problem in current systems exists when a single PC is required to support multiple sensor systems such as a wheel aligner combined with an engine analyzer. A PC has a limit to the number of add-in interface boards that can be added. There is a finite number of I/O addresses and interrupts that are available and once all of them are used, no additional boards may be added. The same problem exists if serial communications ports or parallel printer ports are used. Once the supported ports are used, it is difficult to add more. Furthermore, repair or replacement of interface boards may require specialized computer training for the automotive service technicians.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PRIOR ART
Automotive service equipment of the prior art have until recently used special purpose microprocessors or custom designed computer systems to process the electronic data signals generated by sensors for the purpose of facilitating servicing and repair of automobiles. These proprietary designed systems were optimized for data acquisition of particular automotive service systems sensors. For instance, automotive service systems designed for wheel alignment were designed specifically to acquire data from alignment sensors and display information and data related to wheel alignment.
FIG. 1
shows a typical arrangement. Special purpose computer
10
includes a microprocessor
14
and a data acquisition means
12
, for example various hard wired ports associated with the special purpose computer
10
. Automotive service system data sensors
16
are coupled to the data acquisition means
12
via appropriate cabling. Display
18
is connected to computer
10
and used as an operator interface.
Later, general purpose computers were used, such as IBM PC compatibles and other brands. General purpose computers of the prior art were not specifically designed for fast data acquisition from sensors and provided only standard serial point-to-point communications via RS-232 protocols, or standard “Centronics” style parallel port communications. Using the serial communications port or the parallel printer port was slow, and generally supported only one device.
FIG. 2
shows a typical arrangement. General purpose computer
20
is an IBM or Apple compatible. Computer
20
includes a microprocessor
22
and a standard UART communications port
24
. Associated with the system is external sensor interface board
26
, which contains its own UART
28
for transmission to UART
24
. Sensors
32
,
34
,
36
and
38
are connected to the interface board
26
via input port means
30
with a standard hard wired connection.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,734,569, assigned to the assignee herein and hereby incorporated by reference, discloses fast sensor data acquisition on a general purpose computer. It discloses a system that circumvents some of the disadvantages of the use of the serial and parallel ports by connecting directly to the ISA or PCI ports inside the computer.
FIG. 3
shows generally how this worked. General purpose computer
40
contains a microprocessor
42
and one of a plurality of expansion slots
46
, connected to the microprocessor
42
via synchronous parallel data paths
44
. Sensor interface board
48
plugs into the expansion slot
46
. Board
48
contains a dual port RAM
50
that receives sensor data from automotive service system sensors
56
through UART
54
and microcontroller
52
, both also residing on board
48
. Dual port RAM occupies logical address space in computer
40
, and thereby enables data acquisition speed on the order of the speed with which the microprocessor
42
accesses its own memory. Still, board
48
sufferes from the deficiencies noted above, particularly limitation on expandability.
Another prior art arrangement utilizes a SCSI interface. The arrangement is shown generally in FIG.
4
. Data acquisition unit
64
acquires sensor data from engine analyzer sensors
66
. The unit
64
is connected to the SCSI interface of add-in board
62
. This standard SCSI interface is a fast parallel type of interface for transmitting data between computer
60
and multiple external peripherals. This other prior art arrangement suffers from the same infirmities noted above with respect to hardware interface boards.
OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the present invention to overcome the disadvantages of the prior art. More specifically, it is an object of the present invention to provide an improved computerized automotive service equipment system.
It is further an object of the invention to integrate a general purpose computer into automotive service equipment in a manner permitting multiple automotive service functions to reside on a single general purpose computer.
It is another object of the invention to provide a high speed multi-point serial link on an automotive service equipment sensor interface board that is easily connected to a general purpose computer through an operating system supported by an industry standard serial interface protocol.
It is still another object of the invention to provide automotive service equipment having a general purpose computer that can accommodate multiple sensor systems that all may be connected or disconnected without disassembling the gene
Coburn, II David R.
Craig Jeffery G.
Kling, III Michael J.
Rogers Steven W.
McDermott & Will & Emery
Snap-on Technologies, Inc.
Zanelli Michael J.
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