Constructing software delta updates for vehicle ECU software and abnormality detection based on toolchain

• US 10,402,192 B2
• Filed: 07/24/2018
• Issued: 09/03/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 07/25/2017
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Aurora Labs Limited
• Original Assignee: Aurora Labs Limited
• Inventors: Fox, Zohar
• Primary Examiner(s): Dascomb, Jacob D
• Application Number:
  US16/044,002
• Publication Number:
  US 20190034193A1
• Time in Patent Office: 406 Days
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2050/021 Means for detecting failure or malfunction
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 50/02 Ensuring safety in case of control system failures, e.g. by diagnosing, circumventing or fixing failures
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 50/0205 Diagnosing or detecting failures; Failure detection models
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 50/0225 Failure correction strategy
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 50/04 Monitoring the functioning of the control system
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 50/045 Monitoring control system parameters
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0721 within a central processing unit [CPU]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0751 Error or fault detection not based on redundancy power supply failures G06F1/30; network fault management H04L41/06
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0793 Remedial or corrective actions recovery from an exception in an instruction pipeline G06F9/3861; by retry G06F11/1402; for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity H04L69/40
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1433 during software upgrading
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1629 Error detection by comparing the output of redundant processing systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3612 by runtime analysis performance monitoring G06F11/3466
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0284 Multiple user address space allocation, e.g. using different base addresses interprocessor communication G06F15/163
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0646 Configuration or reconfiguration
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/188 Virtual file systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/57 Certifying or maintaining trusted computer platforms, e.g. secure boots or power-downs, version controls, system software checks, secure updates or assessing vulnerabilities
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/572 Secure firmware programming, e.g. of basic input output system [BIOS]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/577 Assessing vulnerabilities and evaluating computer system security
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/1008 Correctness of operation, e.g. memory ordering
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/1044 : Space efficiency improvement
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/1056 : Simplification
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/033 : Test or assess software
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/60 : Software deployment
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/65 : Updates security arrangements therefor G06F21/57
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/654 : using techniques specially adapted for alterable solid state memories, e.g. for EEPROM or flash memories
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/656 : while running
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/658 : Incremental updates; Differential updates
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/66 : of program code stored in read-only memory [ROM]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/71 : Version control security arrangements therefor G06F21/57; Configuration management
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4401 : Bootstrapping security arrangements therefor G06F21/57
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/445 : Program loading or initiating bootstrapping G06F9/4401; security arrangements for program loading or initiating G06F21/57
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/44521 : Dynamic linking or loading; Link editing at or after load time, e.g. Java class loading
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 20/00 : Machine learning
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 : Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management

Abstract

Disclosed embodiments relate to generating an update package for updating software on an Electronic Control Unit (ECU) in a vehicle. Operations may include accessing a plurality of attributes of a software update to be stored on the ECU in the vehicle; accessing a corresponding plurality of attributes of current software stored on the ECU in the vehicle; comparing the plurality of attributes with the corresponding plurality of attributes; generating a delta file representing differences between the plurality of attributes and the corresponding plurality of attributes determined in the comparison; and providing the delta file to the ECU, wherein the delta file is configured to be processed by startup code in the ECU that enables the delta file to execute in the ECU in the vehicle.

Claims

1. A non-transitory computer readable medium including instructions that, when executed by at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to perform operations for generating an update package for updating software on an Electronic Control Unit (ECU) in a vehicle, comprising:

accessing a plurality of attributes of a software update to be executed on the ECU in the vehicle;

accessing a corresponding plurality of attributes of current software stored on the ECU in the vehicle;

comparing the plurality of attributes with the corresponding plurality of attributes;

generating a multi-dimensional delta file comprising position-independent code, wherein the multi-dimensional delta file represents differences between the plurality of attributes and the corresponding plurality of attributes determined in the comparison and the multi-dimensional delta file comprises at least one of a binary data dimension, a source attribute dimension, or a map file dimension;

configuring the position-independent code to execute on the ECU; and

providing the multi-dimensional delta file to the ECU;

wherein the software on the ECU is mapped to a plurality of functional units, and the ECU is configured to utilize a virtual file system (VFS) to generate the multi-dimensional delta file to use for execution on the ECU.

2. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein startup code integrated into the multi-dimensional delta file is configured to enable the multi-dimensional delta file to execute in the ECU in the vehicle.

3. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 2, wherein the startup code is installed on the ECU before the multi-dimensional delta file is received by the ECU.

4. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 2, wherein the startup code is configured to initialize a runtime library of the multi-dimensional delta file.

5. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 2, wherein the startup code is configured to update a program counter of the ECU to execute an instruction contained in the multi-dimensional delta file.

6. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the multi-dimensional delta file comprises variable data representing a value of a variable referenced by the software update.

7. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 6, wherein startup code is configured to extract the variable data from the multi-dimensional delta file and place the variable data into a memory accessible to the ECU.

8. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the multi-dimensional delta file comprises code for updating memory addresses in the ECU.

9. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 8, wherein startup code is configured to extract the code for updating memory addresses and update the memory addresses in the ECU.

10. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the ECU is configured to utilize the virtual file system (VFS) to manage and track one or more versions of each of the plurality of functional units.

11. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 10, wherein the plurality of attributes of the software update to be stored on the ECU comprises at least one of the plurality of functional units managed by the VFS.

12. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the instructions further comprise:

applying a first grid to the software update;

applying a second grid to the current software stored on the ECU; and

identifying the plurality of attributes and the corresponding plurality of attributes based on a comparison of the first and second grids.

13. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 12, wherein the first grid represents the software update in one or more dimensions, including at least one of:

the binary data dimension,

the source attribute dimension, and

the map file dimension.

14. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the plurality of attributes is identified at least partially based on a programming language used to develop the software update.

15. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the plurality of attributes is identified at least partially based on a binary file resolution of the software update.

16. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the plurality of attributes is identified at least partially based on a map file associated with the software update.

17. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the software update is a monolithic file.

18. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the software update is a file interdependent on other files.

19. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the operations include, before providing the multi-dimensional delta file to the ECU, checking a dependency system to determine whether any interdependent ECUs should be updated based on the multi-dimensional delta file being provided to the ECU.

20. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 19, wherein the operations further include automatically providing additional multi-dimensional delta files to the interdependent ECUs to perform software updates on the interdependent ECUs.

21. A system for generating an update package for updating software on an Electronic Control Unit (ECU) in a vehicle, the system comprising:

one or more processors; and

one or more memories having instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform the operations of;

accessing a plurality of attributes of a software update to be executed on the ECU in the vehicle;

accessing a corresponding plurality of attributes of current software stored on the ECU in the vehicle;

comparing the plurality of attributes with the corresponding plurality of attributes;

generating a multi-dimensional delta file comprising position-independent code, wherein the multi-dimensional delta file represents differences between the plurality of attributes and the corresponding plurality of attributes determined in the comparison and the multi-dimensional delta file comprises at least one of a binary data dimension, a source attribute dimension, or a map file dimension;

configuring the position-independent code to execute on the ECU; and

providing the multi-dimensional delta file to the ECU;

wherein the software on the ECU is mapped to a plurality of functional units, and the ECU is configured to utilize a virtual file system (VFS) to generate the multi-dimensional delta file to use for execution on the ECU.

22. The system of claim 21, wherein startup code configured to enable the multi-dimensional delta file to execute in the ECU in the vehicle is configured to initialize a runtime library of the multi-dimensional delta file.

23. A computer-implemented method for generating an update package for updating software on an Electronic Control Unit (ECU) in a vehicle, the method comprising:

accessing a plurality of attributes of a software update to be executed on the ECU in the vehicle;

accessing a corresponding plurality of attributes of current software stored on the ECU in the vehicle;

comparing the plurality of attributes with the corresponding plurality of attributes;

generating a multi-dimensional delta file comprising position-independent code, wherein the multi-dimensional delta file represents differences between the plurality of attributes and the corresponding plurality of attributes determined in the comparison and the multi-dimensional delta file comprises at least one of a binary data dimension, a source attribute dimension, or a map file dimension;

configuring the position-independent code to execute on the ECU; and

providing the multi-dimensional delta file to the ECU;

wherein the software on the ECU is mapped to a plurality of functional units, and the ECU is configured to utilize a virtual file system (VFS) to generate the multi-dimensional delta file to use for execution on the ECU.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein startup code configured to enable the multi-dimensional delta file to execute in the ECU in the vehicle is configured to initialize a runtime library of the multi-dimensional delta file.