FUNCTIONALLY EXPANDABLE VEHICLE CONTROL DEVICE AND METHOD FOR SUPPLEMENTING THE FUNCTIONALITY OF A VEHICLE CONTROL DEVICE

• US 20150154113A1
• Filed: 05/08/2013
• Published: 06/04/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 05/12/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Volkswagen AG
• Original Assignee: Volkswagen AG
• Inventors: Krieger, Olaf
• Granted Patent: US 9,880,927 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0246 in block erasable memory, e.g. flash memory
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/1433 for a module or a part of a module
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/1052 Security improvement
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/7201 Logical to physical mapping or translation of blocks or pages
• 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 9/4881 Scheduling strategies for dispatcher, e.g. round robin, multi-level priority queues
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5016 the resource being the memory

Abstract

A vehicle control device for supplementing/changing the functionality of a vehicle control device. A vehicle control device is created having at least one processor, a memory coupled to the processor, a plurality of application modules, and at least one communication interface for interchanging data with other vehicle control devices or an external vehicle device. Also disclosed is a method for supplementing/changing the functionality of a vehicle control device.

Claims

1. A vehicle controller, comprising:

at least one processor;

a memory coupled to the processor, wherein the memory stores program codes from an operating system that are able to be executed on the processor;

a plurality of application modules that provide functionalities of the vehicle controller; and

at least one communication interface for data interchange with other vehicle controllers or with an external vehicle device,

wherein the application modules each have the program and data memory areas of the memory that are needed for their respective execution statically associated with them, and

wherein the operating system is designed to allow the individual application modules access to the processor at previously statically stipulated intervals of time for the purpose of executing their program code,

wherein one of the plurality of application modules is in the form of an update module in order to use the at least one communication interface to receive program code from one or more augmenting modules and to store it in the memory in order to prompt an expansion and/or change in the functionality of the vehicle controller,

wherein one of the plurality of application modules is in the form of a runtime environment module that provides a runtime environment in order to execute the program code of the one or more augmenting modules, and

wherein the update module is designed to store the program code of the augmenting module(s) in the program memory associated with the runtime environment module, wherein the runtime environment module is designed to split the data memory area allocated to it and the processor access time available to it dynamically at runtime in order to execute the program code of the one or more augmenting modules.

2. The vehicle controller of claim 1, wherein the memory comprises a nonvolatile parameter memory that stores or can be used to store parameters for the application modules, wherein one of the application modules provides a functionality that permits the parameters to be read and/or set by means of communication using the at least one communication interface, wherein parameters for augmenting modules are stored in the parameter memory in the form of key value pairs.

3. The vehicle controller of claim 1, wherein the communication structure in the controller is statically stipulated at the time of production of the vehicle controller, said communication structure comprising message queues that the runtime environment module can use to interchange data with the remainder of the application modules.

4. The vehicle controller of claim 3, wherein the runtime environment module provides a message queue manager in its runtime environment, said message queue manager providing static runtime environment message queues that are mapped onto the static message queues of the operating system level and allow the augmenting modules to communicate with the remainder of the application modules and permitting dynamic message queues to be formed at runtime in order to allow communication between the augmenting modules.

5. The vehicle controller of claim 1, wherein the runtime environment module comprises a virtual machine in the form of a stack machine.

6. The vehicle controller of claim 1, wherein the communication interface is as a message-based interface and the individual vehicle controllers have associated communication identifiers, and at least one communication identifier is stipulated that are provided for communication by or with an augmenting module.

7. A method for augmenting the functionality of a vehicle controller, comprising:

providing or producing a program code for an augmenting module that, when executed, prompts a new or altered functionality of the vehicle controller;

setting up a communication link to the update module of the vehicle controller via the at least one communication interface;

transmitting the program code of the augmenting module to the vehicle controller; and

storing the program code in a program memory area allocated to the runtime environment module, as a result of which the runtime environment module executes the program code of the augmenting module.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the program code of the augmenting module has metadata added to it that comprise at least requirement information about resources needed for execution, and the metadata are transmitted to the vehicle controller prior to transmission of the program code or with the program code, and the update module uses the metadata to check whether the vehicle controller meets the requirement for the resources that are needed, and, if this is not the case, terminates transmission of the program data from the augmenting module, rejects said transmission, discards said transmission or erases said transmission from the memory again.