ELECTRONIC CONTROL UNIT FOR VEHICLE

• US 20130090804A1
• Filed: 10/04/2012
• Published: 04/11/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 10/05/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: DENSO Corporation
• Original Assignee: DENSO Corporation
• Inventors: ENOMOTO, Hiroyuki, NISHISEKO, Takafumi, ODA, Shinichiro
• Granted Patent: US 9,162,684 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 701/32.3
• CPC Class Codes: B60G 2400/33 Throttle position
• CPC Class Codes: B60G 2400/821 Uneven, rough road sensing affecting vehicle body vibration
• CPC Class Codes: B60G 2400/824 Travel path sensing; Track monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2050/046 involving external transmission of data to or from the vehicle, e.g. via telemetry, satellite, Global Positioning System [GPS]
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2510/0604 Throttle position
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2552/00 Input parameters relating to infrastructure
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2552/05 Type of road, e.g. motorways, local streets, paved or unpaved roads
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2552/15 Road slope, i.e. the inclination of a road segment in the longitudinal direction
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2556/50 of positioning data, e.g. GPS [Global Positioning System] data
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 50/04 Monitoring the functioning of the control system
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/0841 Registering performance data recording measured values G01D; information storage G11B

Abstract

An electronic control unit includes a threshold acquiring element, a behavior determining element and a storing element. The threshold acquiring element acquires a threshold for defining a determination condition. The threshold is set to correspond to a road condition on which a vehicle travels. The behavior determining element determines whether a vehicle behavior satisfies the determination condition defined by the threshold. The storing element stores predetermined operation data of the vehicle when the behavior determining element determines that the vehicle behavior satisfies the determination condition.

Claims

1. An electronic control unit for a vehicle, comprising:

a threshold acquiring element that acquires a threshold for defining a determination condition, the threshold being set to correspond to a road condition on which the vehicle travels;

a behavior determining element that determines whether a vehicle behavior satisfies the determination condition defined by the threshold; and

a storing element that stores operation data of the vehicle when the behavior determining element determines that the vehicle behavior satisfies the determination condition defined by the threshold.

2. The electronic control unit according to claim 1, further comprising a road condition acquiring element that acquires the road condition.

3. The electronic control unit according to claim 2, wherein the road condition acquiring element acquires the road condition from a navigation device disposed in the vehicle.

4. The electronic control unit according to claim 3, wherein

the threshold acquiring element transmits a type of the vehicle and the road condition acquired from the navigation device to a remote base station, and acquires the threshold corresponding to the road condition and the type of the vehicle from the remote base station.

5. The electronic control unit according to claim 2, wherein the road condition acquiring element receives a position of the vehicle from a position detecting device disposed in the vehicle, transmits the position of the vehicle to a remote base station, and acquires the road condition corresponding to the position of the vehicle from the remote base station.

6. The electronic control unit according to claim 2, wherein

the threshold acquiring element acquires a plurality of the thresholds,

the behavior determining element provisionally determines whether the vehicle behavior satisfies at least one of a plurality of the determination conditions defined by the plurality of the thresholds,

the electronic control unit further comprising:

a temporarily storing element that temporarily stores the operation data when the vehicle behavior provisionally determined satisfies the at least one of the plurality of the determination conditions, wherein

the road condition acquiring element acquires an actual road condition on which the vehicle actually traveled,

the behavior determining element determines whether the operation data temporarily stored corresponds to the actual road condition, and

the storing element formally stores the operation data that is temporarily determined to correspond to the actual road condition.

7. The electronic control unit according to claim 2, wherein

the threshold acquiring element calculates the threshold corresponding to the road condition.

8. The electronic control unit according to claim 2, wherein

when the threshold acquiring element determines that a deceleration operation is indicated based on the road condition acquired by the road condition acquiring element, the threshold acquiring element sets the threshold to define the determination condition as a lower condition to have an acceleration state as the vehicle behavior satisfying the determination condition earlier than when the determination condition is not lowered.

9. The electronic control unit according to claim 8, wherein

the threshold acquiring element determines that the deceleration operation is indicated when the road condition acquired by the road condition acquiring element indicates a position before the curve.

10. The electronic control unit according to claim 8, wherein

the threshold acquiring element determines that the deceleration operation is indicated when the road condition acquired by the road condition acquiring element indicates a downward slope.

11. The electronic control unit according to claim 8, wherein

the threshold acquiring element determines that the deceleration operation is indicated when the road condition acquired by the road condition acquired element indicates a public parking.

12. The electronic control unit according to claim 2, wherein

when the threshold acquiring element determines that an acceleration operation is indicated based on the road condition acquired by the road condition acquiring element, the threshold acquiring element sets the threshold to define the determination condition as a higher condition to have an acceleration state as the vehicle behavior satisfying the determination condition later than when the determination condition is not higher.

13. The electronic control unit according to claim 12, wherein

the threshold acquiring element determines that the acceleration operation is indicated when the road condition acquired by the road condition acquiring element indicates a rising slope.

14. The electronic control unit according to claim 2, wherein

when the threshold acquiring element determines that an acceleration state as the vehicle behavior unnecessarily satisfies the determination condition based on the road condition acquired by the road condition acquiring element, the threshold acquiring element sets the threshold to define the determination condition to a higher condition to have the acceleration state satisfying the determination condition later than when the determination condition is not higher.

15. The electronic control unit according to claim 14, wherein

the threshold acquiring element determines that the acceleration state of the vehicle unnecessarily satisfies the determination condition when the road condition acquired by the road condition acquiring element indicates at least one of an unpaved road and a road under construction.

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

the threshold acquiring element acquires a position of the vehicle from a position detecting device disposed in the vehicle, transmits the position of the vehicle and a type of the vehicle to a remote base station, and acquires the road condition corresponding to the position of the vehicle and the threshold corresponding to the type of the vehicle from the remote base station.