DISTRIBUTED VEHICLE CONTROL SYSTEM

• US 20120204059A1
• Filed: 04/16/2012
• Published: 08/09/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 04/24/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: MicroPairing Technologies LLC (Micropairing Technologies Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Eagle Harbor Holdings, L.L.C.
• Inventors: Preston, Dan A.
• Granted Patent: US 8,380,383 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/10
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 25/00 Fittings or systems for preventing or indicating unauthorised use or theft of vehicles locks for vehicles E05B77/00-E05B85/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2028 eliminating a faulty processor or activating a spare
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2035 without idle spare hardware
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2046 where the redundant components share persistent storage G06F11/2043 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3013 where the computing system is an embedded system, i.e. a combination of hardware and software dedicated to perform a certain function in mobile devices, printers, automotive or aircraft systems testing or monitoring of control systems or parts thereof G05B23/02
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3051 Monitoring arrangements for monitoring the configuration of the computing system or of the computing system component, e.g. monitoring the presence of processing resources, peripherals, I/O links, software programs verification or detection of system hardware configuration G06F11/2247
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/328 Computer systems status display G06F11/327 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/4081 Live connection to bus, e.g. hot-plugging current or voltage limitation during live insertion H02H9/004
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/44505 Configuring for program initiating, e.g. using registry, configuration files
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/46 Multiprogramming arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0641 Shopping interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/08 Registering or indicating performance data other than driving, working, idle, or waiting time, with or without registering driving, working, idle or waiting time
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/40169 Flexible bus arrangements arrangements for maintenance or administration involving management of faults; events, alarms H04L41/06; automatic restoration of network faults H04L41/0654
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/403 with centralised control, e.g. polling
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2012/40273 the transportation system being a vehicle
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/00 Arrangements for maintenance, administration or management of data switching networks, e.g. of packet switching networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0806 for initial configuration or provisioning, e.g. plug-and-play
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0809 Plug-and-play configuration
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/22 comprising specially adapted graphical user interfaces [GUI]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/01 Protocols
• 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 67/125 : involving control of end-device applications over a network
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 : Network security protocols

Abstract

A distributed vehicle control system comprising a secure real-time executive running as a distributed abstraction of both the application and the operating system, where the SRE comprises a message manager, security manager, critical data manager, configuration manager, and multi-processor task control manager and is configured to control how the processors communicate with each other, how the processors are initiated, how the processors start tasks, and how priorities are set for messages.

Claims

1. A distributed vehicle control system, comprising:

multiple processors in a distributed multi-processor system;

a secure real-time executive (SRE) operating in the distributed multi-processor system, wherein the SRE operates on each processor independently and wherein each independently operating SRE comprises a message manager associated with an application running on each of the processors and configured to associate priority values with messages transmitted by the applications and to control the processing sequence of messages received by applications according to a predetermined priority scheme;

a first processor in the distributed processing system running a first application, wherein the first processor receives a first message from the first application and associates a first priority value with the first message;

a second processor in the distributed processing system running a second application, wherein the SRE running on the second processor receives a second message from the second application and associates a second priority value with the second message;

a third processor in the distributed processing system running a third application, wherein the SRE running on the third processor receives the first message and associated first priority from the first processor and receives the second message and associated second priority from the second processor and responsive to receiving the priority associated messages, determines the sequence in which the third application handles the priority associated messages using the predetermined priority scheme.

2. The vehicle distributed control system according to claim 1 wherein the distributed vehicle control system comprises at least one of vehicle infrared sensor control, vehicle radar sensor control, vehicle video control, vehicle brake control, vehicle audio control, vehicle environmental control and vehicle driver assistance control.

3. The vehicle distributed control system according to claim 1 wherein the operating systems are real-time, wherein the real-time operating systems are subject to time constraints from task to task.

4. The vehicle distributed control system according to claim 1 wherein the network is at least one of wired and wireless.

5. The vehicle distributed control system according to claim 1 wherein the predetermined priority scheme is based on critical occupant safety data and system warning prompts.

6. The vehicle distributed control system according to claim 1 wherein the SRE further comprises a security manager configured to control which data and messages are allowed to be received and transmitted by the different vehicle applications operating on the different processors.

7. The vehicle distributed control system according to claim 1 wherein the SRE further comprises a critical data manager configured to identify messages containing data from critical and non-critical operations and to prevent applications related to non-critical operations and messages from non-critical operations from being transferred to processors running applications associated with critical operations.

8. The vehicle distributed control system according to claim 7 wherein the critical data manager periodically stores data associated with the identified critical operations.

9. The vehicle distributed control system according to claim 7 wherein the critical data manager manages the retention of data generated by a safety application operating on a first safety application processor by transferring the data to a second safety application processor that takes over operation of the application when a failure is identified in the first safety application processor.

10. The vehicle distributed control system according to claim 1 wherein one or more of the distributed network of processors operate a task manager;

the task manager operating one or more sensors for capturing sensor data and then controlling transfer of the captured sensor data between the processors for subsequent processing.

11. The vehicle distributed control system according to claim 1 wherein one or more of the processors in the distributed network of processors operate a configuration manager configured to monitor communications between the processors in order to detect processor failures.

12. The vehicle distributed control system according to claim 11 wherein one or more of the processors in the distributed network of processors operate a critical data manager to retain at least some of the sensor data and direct the retained sensor data and any new sensor data to the different processors according to any processor failures identified by the configuration manager.

13. The vehicle distributed control system according to claim 1 wherein one or more of the applications are implemented using a Java or C++ operating language.

14. The vehicle distributed control system according to claim 1 wherein the applications are associated with at least two different hardware protocols.

15. The vehicle distributed control system according to claim 1 wherein the SRE cannot be manipulated by the applications.

16. The vehicle distributed control system according to claim 1 wherein the SRE initiates two or more of the processors in a lock-step mode wherein the lock-step mode is used to at least one of determine a system failure, determine a sequence of events, reconstruct a vehicle accident and diagnose a vehicle system.

17. A method for operating a distributed vehicle control system, comprising:

operating a secure real-time executive (SRE) in a distributed multi-processor system, wherein the SRE operates on each processor independently and wherein each independently operating SRE comprises a message manager associated with an application running on each of the processors and configured to associate priority values with messages transmitted by the applications and to control the processing sequence of messages received by applications according to a predetermined priority scheme;

running a first application on a first processor in the distributed processing system, wherein the first processor receives a first message from the first application and associates the first priority value with the first message;

running a second application on a second processor in the distributed processing system, wherein the SRE running on the second processor receives a second message from the second application and associates a second priority value with the second message;

running a third application on a third processor in the distributed processing system, wherein the SRE running on the third processor receives the first message and associated first priority from the first processor and receives the second message and associated second priority from the second processor and responsive to receiving the priority associated messages, determines the sequence in which the third application handles the priority associated messages using the predetermined priority scheme.

18. The method for operating a distributed vehicle control system according to claim 17 wherein the distributed vehicle control system comprises at least one of vehicle infrared sensor control, vehicle radar sensor control, vehicle video control, vehicle brake control, vehicle audio control, vehicle environmental control and vehicle driver assistance control.

19. The method for operating a distributed vehicle control system according to claim 17 wherein the operating systems are real-time, wherein the real-time operating systems are subject to time constraints from task to task.

20. The method for operating a distributed vehicle control system according to claim 17 wherein the network is at least one of wired and wireless.

21. The method for operating a distributed vehicle control system according to claim 17 wherein the predetermined priority scheme is based on critical occupant safety data and system warning prompts.

22. The method for operating a distributed vehicle control system according to claim 17 wherein the SRE further comprises a security manager configured to control which data and which messages are allowed to be received and transmitted by the different vehicle applications operating on the different processors.

23. The method for operating a distributed vehicle control system according to claim 17 wherein the SRE further comprises a critical data manager configured to identify messages containing data from critical and non-critical operations and to prevent applications related to non-critical operations and messages from non-critical operations from being transferred to processors running applications associated with critical operations.

24. The method for operating a distributed vehicle control system according to claim 23 wherein the critical data manager periodically stores data associated with the identified critical operations.

25. The method for operating a distributed vehicle control system according to claim 23 wherein the critical data manager manages the retention of data generated by a safety application operating on a first safety application processor by transferring the data to a second safety application processor that takes over operation of the application when a failure is identified in the first safety application processor.

26. The method for operating a distributed vehicle control system according to claim 17 wherein one or more of the distributed network of processors operate a task manager;

the task manager operating one or more sensors for capturing sensor data and then controlling transfer of the captured sensor data between the processors for subsequent processing.

27. The method for operating a distributed vehicle control system according to claim 17 wherein one or more of the processors in the distributed network of processors operate a configuration manager configured to monitor communications between the processors in order to detect processor failures.

28. The method for operating a distributed vehicle control system according to claim 27 wherein one or more of the processors in the distributed network of processors operate a critical data manager to retain at least some of the sensor data and direct the retained sensor data and any new sensor data to the different processors according to any processor failures identified by the configuration manager.

29. The method for operating a distributed vehicle control system according to claim 17 wherein one or more of the applications are implemented using a Java or C++ operating language.

30. The method for operating a distributed vehicle control system according to claim 17 wherein the applications are associated with at least two different hardware protocols.

31. The method for operating a distributed vehicle control system according to claim 17 wherein the SRE cannot be manipulated by the applications.

32. The method for operating a distributed vehicle control system according to claim 17 wherein the SRE initiates two or more of the processors in a lock-step mode wherein the lock-step mode is used to at least one of determine a system failure, determine a sequence of events, reconstruct a vehicle accident and diagnose a vehicle system.