Updating a controller unit in a vehicle

• US 10,599,420 B2
• Filed: 10/29/2018
• Issued: 03/24/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 01/22/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Blackberry Limited
• Original Assignee: 2236008 Ontario Inc. (Blackberry Limited)
• Inventors: Quin, Spencer Leavitt George, Travers, Christopher Scott, Streatch, Paul, Maclean, Roger Francis
• Primary Examiner(s): Lee, Marina
• Application Number:
  US16/173,918
• Publication Number:
  US 20190138292A1
• Time in Patent Office: 512 Days
• Field of Search: 717168-178
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 16/02 electric constitutive elements
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/65 Updates security arrangements therefor G06F21/57
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/123 received data contents, e.g. message integrity
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/44 for communication between vehicles and infrastructures, e.g. vehicle-to-cloud [V2C] or vehicle-to-home [V2H]

Abstract

In some examples, a service receives releases including machine-readable instructions from different vendors, the releases for respective controller units of a vehicle. The service communicates the releases wirelessly to the vehicle to update machine-readable instructions executing on the respective controller units of the vehicle.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving, by an update gateway in a vehicle over a wireless network, releases comprising machine-readable instructions from different vendors, the releases being for respective controller units of the vehicle, and the controller units being from the different vendors, wherein the releases are associated with metadata specifying a manner and time for downloading each release of the releases to the vehicle, and wherein the metadata specifies that a download of a release of the releases is to a group of vehicles that share at least one property; and

installing, by the update gateway in the vehicle, the received releases in the vehicle to update machine-readable instructions executable on the respective controller units of the vehicle.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the update gateway is connected to different types of networks or buses in the vehicle, and the controller units are connected to the different types of networks or buses.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the releases are received by the update gateway from a service that presents a user interface (UI) console accessible by vendor systems associated with the different vendors to provide the releases to the service.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

sending, by the vehicle to the service, a profile of the vehicle, the profile including information relating to any of or all dependent components or independent components of the vehicle that are in communication with the update gateway of the vehicle.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the profile includes information relating to the controller units and installed releases of the machine-readable instructions executable on the controller units.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein the profile includes information relating to an identity of the wireless network over which the vehicle is communicating.

7. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

sending, by the vehicle to the service, information regarding a status relating to the update of the machine-readable instructions executable on the respective controller units of the vehicle, the status selected from among success, failure, partial failure, rollback, and retry.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the update gateway directly installs a first release of the releases onto a first controller unit of the controller units.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the update gateway indirectly installs a first release of the releases onto a first controller unit of the controller units by communicating the first release to an installer service to install the first release onto the first controller unit.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving an update of machine-readable instructions of the update gateway; and

installing the update onto the update gateway to update the machine-readable instructions of the update gateway.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

verifying, by the update gateway, an integrity of each respective release of the releases by verifying a signature of the respective release.

12. A vehicle comprising:

a plurality of controller units from different vendors to perform respective tasks in the vehicle; and

an update gateway to;

receive, over a wireless network, update packages comprising machine-readable instructions from the different vendors, the update packages being for respective controller units of the plurality of controller units from the different vendors, wherein the update packages are received by the update gateway from a service that presents a user interface (UI) console accessible by vendor systems associated with the different vendors to provide the update packages to the service; and

cause installation of the received update packages to update machine-readable instructions executable on the plurality of controller units.

13. The vehicle of claim 12, wherein the update gateway is to install a given update package of the update packages by one or both of:

communicating the given update package to a third party installer service to install the given update package on a respective controller unit of the plurality of controller units, wherein the third party installer service manages installation of update packages of a collection of the plurality of the controller units, and

directly installing the given update package of the update packages on the respective controller unit.

14. The vehicle of claim 12, wherein the update gateway is connected to different types of networks or buses in the vehicle, and the plurality of controller units are connected to the different types of networks or buses.

15. The vehicle of claim 12, wherein the update gateway is to:

send, to the service, a profile of the vehicle, the profile including information relating to any of or all dependent components or independent components of the vehicle that are in communication with the update gateway of the vehicle.

16. The vehicle of claim 15, wherein the profile includes an identity of the wireless network over which the vehicle is communicating.

17. The vehicle of claim 12, wherein the update packages comprise metadata specifying a manner and time for downloading each update package of the update packages to the vehicle, and specifying that a download of an update package of the update packages is to a group of vehicles that share at least one property.

18. A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium comprising instructions that upon execution cause an update gateway of a vehicle to:

send, over a wireless network to a service, a profile of the vehicle, the profile including an identity of the wireless network over which the vehicle is communicating;

receive, over the wireless network from the service, update packages comprising machine-readable instructions from different vendors of respective controller units in the vehicle, the update packages being for the respective controller units from the different vendors; and

cause installation of the received update packages to update machine-readable instructions executable on the respective controller units.

19. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 18, wherein the update gateway is connected to different types of networks or buses in the vehicle, and the controller units are connected to the different types of networks or buses.

20. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 18, wherein the update packages comprise metadata specifying a manner and time for downloading each update package of the update packages to the vehicle, and specifying that a download of an update package of the update packages is to a group of vehicles that share at least one property.