Extended park mode

• US 10,035,517 B2
• Filed: 09/19/2014
• Issued: 07/31/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 09/19/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ford Global Technologies, LLC (Ford Motor Company)
• Original Assignee: Ford Global Technologies, LLC (Ford Motor Company)
• Inventors: Lovett, Karin, Burt, Andrew Eugene, Weinfurther, James Michael, Deljevic, Zeljko
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, Cuong H
• Application Number:
  US14/490,921
• Publication Number:
  US 20160082975A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,411 Days
• Field of Search: 701 2, 701 36, 709201
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 16/03 for supply of electrical power to vehicle subsystems or for circuit arrangements for charging batteries H02J7/00
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 10/30 including control of auxiliary equipment, e.g. air-conditioning compressors or oil pumps
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/125 involving control of end-device applications over a network
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/40 for vehicles, e.g. vehicle-to-pedestrians [V2P]

Abstract

A vehicle may include a control module and a plurality of vehicle control modules in networked communication with the control module. The control module may be configured to receive an indication from a user interface to transition the vehicle into an extended park mode, and responsive to the indication, instruct the plurality of vehicle control modules to perform operations to reduce their respective key-off loads on the vehicle. A cloud service may be configured to receive, over a wide-area network responsive to user input to a mobile device, an indication to transition a vehicle associated with the mobile device into an extended park mode, and responsive to the indication, provide a message over the network to the vehicle to instruct the vehicle to perform operations to reduce key-off loads of a plurality of vehicle control modules of the vehicle.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a plurality of control modules of a vehicle, in networked communication,

wherein one of the control modules is configured to

receive an indication from a user interface to transition the vehicle into an extended park mode,

responsive to the indication, instruct the plurality of control modules to perform operations to reduce their respective key-off loads on the vehicle,

receive a second indication from the user interface to transition the vehicle out of the extended park mode, and

responsive to the second indication, instruct the plurality of control modules to return to normal operation.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the second indication from the user interface is a user key-on request, and the one of the control modules is further configured to prompt in the user interface, responsive to the indication, for confirmation to transition the vehicle out of the extended park mode.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the user interface includes a vehicle human machine interface.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the user interface includes a user interface of a mobile device associated with the vehicle, and the one of the control modules is further configured to receive the indication from the mobile device by way of a telecommunication module of the vehicle.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the operations to reduce the key-off loads include at least one of to slow down a rate of performance of a periodic module function or to stop performance of the module function.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the one of the control modules is a body control module.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the control module is further configured to provide a status update to a cloud service, wherein the status update is indicative of the indication from a user interface to transition the vehicle into an extended park mode.

18. The system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of control modules includes at least two of:

a powertrain control module, a battery management module, a radio transceiver module, a telematics control unit, a radio transceiver module, a climate control management module, a global positioning system (GPS) module, or a user interface module.

2. A method comprising:

receiving an indication from a user interface to transition a vehicle into extended park mode;

responsive to the indication, instructing a plurality of vehicle controllers to reduce key-off loads drawn by the vehicle controllers from a vehicle battery;

receiving a second indication from the user interface to transition the vehicle out of extended park mode; and

responsive to the second indication, instructing the plurality of vehicle controllers to return to normal operation.

12. The method of claim 2, wherein the user interface includes a human machine interface of the vehicle.

16. The method of claim 2, wherein the plurality of vehicle controllers includes least two of:

a powertrain control module, a battery management module, a radio transceiver module, a telematics control unit, a radio transceiver module, a climate control management module, a global positioning system (GPS) module, or a user interface module.

17. The method of claim 2, wherein the operations to reduce the key-off loads comprise at least one of slowing down a rate of performance of a periodic module function or stopping performance of the module function.

9. A system comprising:

a cloud service configured to

maintain state information indicative of whether a vehicle is in extended park mode,

receive, over a wide-area network responsive to user input to a mobile device, an indication to transition the vehicle associated with the mobile device into the extended park mode,

responsive to the indication, provide a message over the network to the vehicle to instruct operations to reduce key-off loads of a plurality of vehicle control modules and update the state information to indicate that the vehicle is in the extended park mode,

receive, over the network responsive to second user input, a second indication to transition the vehicle out of the extended park mode, and

responsive to the second indication, provide a second message over the network to the vehicle to instruct operations to return to normal operation and update the state information to indicate that the vehicle is not in the extended park mode.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the cloud service is further configured to determine which vehicle is associated with the mobile device according to a login session of the mobile device with the cloud service.

11. The system of claim 9, wherein the cloud service is further configured to determine which vehicle is associated with the mobile device according to a vehicle identifier number (VIN) provided by the mobile device to the cloud service.

14. The system of claim 9, wherein the cloud service is further configured to filter messages provided to the vehicle from the cloud service based on the state information indicative of whether the vehicle is in the extended park mode.

13. A system comprising:

a controller of a vehicle connected to a vehicle bus and configured to

perform at least one vehicle function under power of a battery of the vehicle;

receive a message over the vehicle bus requesting the controller to transition into extended park mode;

perform operations to reduce key-off load of the controller on the battery responsive to the message;

receive a second message over the vehicle bus requesting the controller to transition out of extended park mode; and

perform operations to return to normal operation of the controller responsive to the second message.

15. The system of claim 13, wherein the controller receives the message over the vehicle bus from a body control module.