Method for determining the cause of failure in a vehicle

• US 10,062,219 B2
• Filed: 08/01/2016
• Issued: 08/28/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 08/03/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Volkswagen AG
• Original Assignee: Volkswagen AG
• Inventors: Richter, Felix, Aymelek, Tetiana, Sasse, Andreas
• Primary Examiner(s): Sweeney, Brian P
• Application Number:
  US15/224,994
• Publication Number:
  US 20170039785A1
• Time in Patent Office: 757 Days
• Field of Search: 701 296
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/008 communicating information to a remotely located station transmission systems for measured values G08C
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/0808 Diagnosing performance data testing of vehicles G01M17/00; testing of electrical installation on vehicles G01R31/005

Abstract

A method for determining a cause of fault in a vehicle. The method involves a fault report being received on a server outside the vehicle and a cause of fault being determined in the server based on the fault report and load collective data from the vehicle and/or based on the fault report and vehicle condition variables from the vehicle.

Claims

1. A method for remotely determining a fault cause in a transportation vehicle, the method comprising:

receiving a fault report at a server located remotely from the transportation vehicle, wherein the fault report is generated in the vehicle based on a fault condition of the transportation vehicle,

wherein the method comprises at least one of the following operations;

determining a fault cause in the server based on the fault report and at least one of load collective data from the vehicle, wherein the load collective data are determined prior to generation of the fault report in the vehicle and wherein the load collective data are transmitted from the vehicle to the server, and

determining a fault cause in the server based on the fault report and vehicle condition variables from the vehicle, wherein the vehicle condition variables are ascertained based on requests from the server to the vehicle in the vehicle and are transmitted from the vehicle to the server,

determining a corresponding current quality value for a determined fault clause;

analyzing the determined current quality value to determine whether to perform another fault clause determination based on the fault report and information other than that used to generate the fault cause corresponding to the determined current quality value;

determining a cause of fault based on customer service data that are retrieved by the server from a customer service database based on the fault report; and

automatically generating a repair standard based on the determined fault cause based on the customer service data.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the operations for determining fault causes are performed in the following order:

determining the fault cause based on customer service data;

determining the fault cause based on the fault report and load collective data from the vehicle; and

determining the fault cause based on the fault report and vehicle condition variables from the vehicle.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein each of the operations for determining the fault cause is followed by determination of a corresponding current quality value for the respective fault cause, and the subsequent determination of the fault cause is performed based on the current quality value.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein a most recently determined quality value is used as a basis for transmitting a most recently determined fault cause from the server to the vehicle for output in the vehicle.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the operations of determining the fault based on customer service data, determining the fault cause based on the fault report and load collective data from the vehicle, and determining the fault cause based on the fault report and vehicle condition variables from the vehicle are performed at parallel times and a resultant cause of fault is determined based on the determined fault causes.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the fault report comprises a diagnosis fault code indicating the fault condition, and a vehicle identification designation indicating at least a vehicle type of the transportation vehicle.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the operation of determining the fault cause based on the fault report and load collective data comprises comparison of the load collective data with load collective data from another vehicle in which the same fault condition has arisen.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the fault report, the load collective data and/or the vehicle condition variables are transmitted via a radio link between the vehicle and the server.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the fault cause based on the fault report and the vehicle condition variables comprises:

generating a test plan based on the fault report, wherein the fault cause is iteratively determined from a prescribed set of fault causes based on the test plan using the condition variables from the vehicle, and

requesting vehicle condition variables based on the test plan.

10. A transportation vehicle comprising:

a processing apparatus; and

a transmission apparatus for transmitting data between the transportation vehicle and a server the transportation vehicle,

wherein the processing apparatus generates a fault report based on a fault condition of the transportation vehicle and transmits the fault report to the server,

wherein the processing apparatus;

transmits load collective data from the vehicle to the server, wherein the load collective data have been determined prior to generation of the fault report in the vehicle, and/or

ascertains vehicle condition variables based on requests from the server to the vehicle in the vehicle and transmits the vehicle condition variables from the vehicle to the server,

wherein, based on information transmitted from the vehicle, determination of a corresponding current quality value for a determined fault clause is performed and analyzed to determine whether to perform another fault clause determination based on the fault report and information other than that used to generate the fault cause corresponding to the determined current quality value,

wherein the transportation vehicle further comprises an output unit, wherein the processing apparatus receives a fault cause, determined by the server, from the server via the transmission apparatus and outputs the fault cause via the output unit,

wherein the server automatically generates a repair standard from the fault cause that was determined based on the customer service data, and

wherein the server automatically generates a repair standard from the fault cause that was determined based on the customer service data.

11. A server comprising:

a processing apparatus; and

a transmission apparatus for transmitting data between the server and a remotely located transportation vehicle,

wherein the processing apparatus receives a fault report, which has been generated in the transportation vehicle based on a fault condition of the transportation vehicle, via the transmission apparatus,

wherein the processing apparatus carries out at least one of the following operations;

determining a fault cause based on the fault report and load collective data from the transportation vehicle, wherein the load collective data are transmitted from the transportation vehicle to the server, wherein the load collective data are determined prior to generation of the fault report in the transportation vehicle; and

determining a fault cause based on the fault report and vehicle condition variables from the transportation vehicle, wherein the vehicle condition variables are ascertained based on requests from the server to the transportation vehicle, in the vehicle, and are transmitted from the transportation vehicle to the server,

wherein the processing apparatus further determines a corresponding current quality value for a determined fault clause, and analyzes the determined current quality value to determine whether to perform another fault clause determination based on the fault report and information other than that used to generate the fault cause corresponding to the determined current quality value,

wherein the server automatically generates a repair standard from the fault cause that was determined based on the customer service data, and

wherein the server automatically generates a repair standard from the fault cause that was determined based on the customer service data.

12. The server of claim 11, wherein the operations for determining fault causes are performed in the following order:

determining the fault cause based on customer service data;

determining the fault cause based on the fault report and load collective data from the vehicle; and

determining the fault cause based on the fault report and vehicle condition variables from the vehicle.

13. The server of claim 12, wherein each of the operations for determining fault causes are followed by a determination of a corresponding current quality value for the respective fault cause, and the subsequent determination of fault cause is performed based on the current quality value.

14. The server of claim 13, wherein a most recently determined quality value is used as a basis for transmitting the most recently determined fault cause from the server to the vehicle for output in the vehicle.

15. The server of claim 11, wherein the operations of determining the fault cause based on customer service data, determining the fault cause based on the fault report and load collective data from the vehicle, and determining the fault cause based on the fault report and vehicle condition variables from the vehicle are performed at parallel times and a resultant fault cause is determined based on the determined fault causes.

16. The server of claim 11, wherein the fault report comprises a diagnosis fault code indicating the fault condition, and a vehicle identification designation indicating at least a vehicle type of the transportation vehicle.

17. The server of claim 11, wherein the operation of determining the fault cause based on the fault report and load collective data comprises a comparison of the load collective data with load collective data from another vehicle in which the same fault condition has arisen.

18. The server of claim 11, wherein the fault report, the load collective data and/or the vehicle condition variables are transmitted via a radio link between the vehicle and the server.

19. The server of claim 11, wherein the determination of the fault based on the fault report and the vehicle condition variables comprises:

generating a test plan based on the fault report, wherein the fault cause is iteratively determined from a prescribed set of fault causes based on the test plan using the condition variables from the vehicle, and

requesting vehicle condition variables based on the test plan.