Electronic control unit

• US 10,248,489 B2
• Filed: 01/21/2016
• Issued: 04/02/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 01/23/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: DENSO Corporation
• Original Assignee: DENSO Corporation
• Inventors: Nomura, Syunsuke, Kondoh, Masayoshi
• Primary Examiner(s): Iqbal, Nadeem
• Application Number:
  US15/002,450
• Publication Number:
  US 20160217024A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,167 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0721 within a central processing unit [CPU]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0739 in a data processing system embedded in automotive or aircraft systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/079 Root cause analysis, i.e. error or fault diagnosis in a hardware test environment G06F11/22; in a software test environment G06F11/36

Abstract

An electronic control unit has (i) a readiness storage area storing readiness indicating that an abnormality diagnosis for diagnosing an abnormality diagnosis item is complete, and (ii) a microcomputer clearing all readiness upon receiving an all clear request based on a condition that is different from a reception of the all clear request. In such configuration, the all clear request for clearing all readiness in the readiness storage area is appropriately handled by the electronic control unit.

Claims

1. An electronic control unit for a vehicle comprising:

a first storage unit configured to store a readiness flag indicating that an abnormality diagnosis for an abnormality diagnostic item is complete;

a second storage unit configured to store permanent diagnostic (PDTC) information in a non-volatile manner; and

a microcomputer configured to

communicate with a data scan tool, wherein the scan tool is external to a vehicle network and connects to the vehicle network to communicate with the microcomputer via a data link connector in the vehicle,

determine whether a current all clear request is received from the vehicle data scan tool, which requests clearing of all readiness flags in the first storage unit,

determine whether an additional condition that is different from the current all clear request is fulfilled in which the additional condition includes that the microcomputer receives a read-out request from the scan tool for reading out the permanent diagnostic information stored in the second storage unit, and

clear all readiness flags in the first storage unit in response to determining both that the current all clear request from the scan tool is received and the additional condition including the read-out request from the scan tool for reading out the permanent diagnostic information stored in the second storage unit is fulfilled.

2. The electronic control unit of claim 1, wherein

the additional condition further includes the microcomputer receiving a preset number of prior all clear requests from the scan tool prior to receiving the current all clear request.

3. The electronic control unit of claim 1, wherein

the additional condition further includes the microcomputer waiting a preset amount of time to receive a read out request from the scan tool for reading out the readiness flag, and

clearing all readiness flags if the read out request has not been received, after the microcomputer receives the current all clear request.

4. The electronic control unit of claim 1, wherein

the additional condition further includes the microcomputer waiting a preset amount of time to receive an additional request from an external device, the additional request other than a read out request from the scan tool for reading out the readiness flag, and

clearing all readiness flags if the additional request has been received, after the microcomputer receives the current all clear request.

5. The electronic control unit according to claim 1, wherein

the microcomputer is configured to perform on-board diagnostics of a vehicle.

6. The electronic control unit according to claim 5, wherein

the microcomputer is configured to detect the abnormality diagnostic item during the on-board diagnostics.

7. An electronic control unit (ECU) disposed in a vehicle, the ECU for controlling deletion of readiness flags, the ECU comprising:

a first memory configured to store one or more readiness flags indicating that an abnormality diagnosis for an abnormality diagnostic item is complete;

a second memory configured to store permanent diagnostic (PDTC) information, the second memory a non-volatile-type memory; and

a microcomputer configured to

communicate with a scan tool, wherein the scan tool is external to a vehicle network and connects to the vehicle network to communicate with the microcomputer via a data link connector in the vehicle,

determine whether an all clear request for deleting the one or more readiness flags stored in the first memory has been transmitted by the scan tool to the microcomputer;

determine whether an additional condition for clearing the one or more readiness flags stored in the first memory has been fulfilled, wherein the additional condition includes determining whether an amount of prior all clear requests transmitted by the scan tool to the microcomputer exceeds a preset amount, and

clear the one or more readiness flags in the first memory when both the all clear request is received and the amount of prior all clear requests exceeds the preset amount.