Methods and apparatus for software updating

• US 10,379,837 B2
• Filed: 03/14/2017
• Issued: 08/13/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 08/10/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ford Global Technologies, LLC (Ford Motor Company)
• Original Assignee: Ford Global Technologies, LLC (Ford Motor Company)
• Inventors: Davey, Christopher K., Adibhatla, Rajya, Esselink, Chad Evert, Humphreys, Jr., Gerald P., Ishac, Salwan H.
• Primary Examiner(s): Dao, Thuy
• Assistant Examiner(s): Smith, Cheneca
• Application Number:
  US15/458,619
• Publication Number:
  US 20170185391A1
• Time in Patent Office: 882 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/61 Installation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/65 Updates security arrangements therefor G06F21/57
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/34 involving the movement of software or configuration parameters network booting or remote initial program loading [RIPL] G06F9/4416

Abstract

A computer-implemented method includes receiving a restore command to restore a vehicle computing system (VCS) system state. The method further includes restoring a base system state to a known, functional state and obtaining a list of applications previously installed on the VCS. The method also includes for each application previously installed on the VCS, finding a version of the application compatible with the restored base system state. Also, the method includes installing the version of each application compatible with the restored base system state.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

obtaining new versions of existing on-board software applications of a vehicle, determined to be needed to maintain compatibility of the software applications with a new operating system update of the vehicle, responsive to receiving the operating system update and prior to installing the operating system update, including obtaining, for an incompatible application, a most recent version, in a lineage of versions, known to be compatible with the updated operating system;

disabling a software application if no available version of the software application is compatible with the updated operating system; and

notifying a user that the software application is being disabled.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising checking, at predetermined times, for new versions of the disabled software application, compatible with the updated operating system.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising installing the operating system update once any software applications incompatible with the updated operating system have either been updated to compatible versions or disabled.