METHOD OF UPDATING SOFTWARE FOR VEHICLE

• US 20150220321A1
• Filed: 09/04/2014
• Published: 08/06/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 02/06/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hyundai Motor Company (Hyundai Motor Group)
• Original Assignee: Hyundai Motor Company (Hyundai Motor Group)
• Inventors: Jung, Jae Hoon
• Granted Patent: US 9,274,785 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/65 Updates security arrangements therefor G06F21/57
• 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

Abstract

Disclosed is a method of updating software for a vehicle. The method includes determining whether a vehicle terminal of the vehicle is running out-of-date software; selecting a target vehicle among neighboring vehicles via wireless communication, wherein the target vehicle is running updated software; receiving a shared update file from the target vehicle via wireless communication, the shared update file based on the updated software; storing the shared update file; and updating the out-of-date software using the shared updated file.

Claims

1. A method of updating software for a vehicle, the method comprising:

determining whether a vehicle terminal of a first vehicle is running out-of-date software;

in response to determining that the vehicle terminal of the first vehicle is running out-of-date software, selecting, at the vehicle terminal of the first vehicle, a target vehicle among neighboring vehicles via wireless communication, wherein the target vehicle is running updated software;

receiving, at the vehicle terminal of the first vehicle, a shared update file from the target vehicle via wireless communication, the shared update file based on the updated software;

storing, at the vehicle terminal of the first vehicle, the shared update file; and

updating, at the vehicle terminal of the first vehicle, the out-of-date software using the shared update file, thereby completing a soft update of the software running on the vehicle terminal of the first vehicle.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein, after the soft update is completed, the vehicle terminal of the first vehicle allows sharing of the shared update file via wireless communication, such that a vehicle terminal of another vehicle can wirelessly receive the shared update file in order to update software running on the vehicle terminal of the other vehicle.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the shared update file was obtained by the vehicle terminal of the target vehicle from an external server.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein in the selecting of the target vehicle, the vehicle terminal of the first vehicle identifies one or more vehicles of the neighboring vehicles using the updated software, moves in a same direction as the vehicle terminal, allows sharing of the shared update file via vehicle-to-vehicle wireless communication, and selects a vehicle from the one or more identified vehicles as the target vehicle.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the shared update file is divided into N file units.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein when a wireless communication link is established between the vehicle terminal receiving the shared update file and the target vehicle while the shared update file is being received from the target vehicle, the vehicle terminal receiving the shared update file selects a new target vehicle, receives remaining file units from the newly selected target vehicle, stores the remaining file units, and updates the out-of-date software when all of the file units are received.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein in the selecting of the target vehicle, the target vehicle is selected among the neighboring vehicles based on information indicating a number of file units to be received, an electric field of wireless communication, an inter-vehicle distance, and an inter-vehicle speed difference, the information being shared via wireless communication between vehicle terminals.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein in the selecting of the target vehicle, a maximum value among I values obtained from Equation 1 is selected from the target vehicle, wherein Equation 1 is as follows:

I=W₁×

(n_I−

n)/N+W₂×

S_I/S_max−

W₃×

D_d/D_max−

W₄×

V_d/max(V_I,V),

wherein W₁, W₂, W₃, and W₄ are preset weight factors, n₁ is a number of file units stored in the target vehicle, n is a number of file units stored in a vehicle of the user, N is a number of all file units, S_I is a Wi-Fi electric field intensity, S_max is a maximum value of Wi-Fi electric field intensity, D_d is an inter-vehicle distance, D_max is a maximum distance at which Wi-Fi communication is enabled, V_d is an inter-vehicle speed difference, V_I is a speed of the target vehicle, V is a speed of the vehicle of the user, and max (V_I,V) is the highest value of two speeds V_I and V.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the vehicle terminal is a telematics unit.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the software is navigation software.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the wireless communication between vehicles is Wi-Fi communication.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the target vehicle is a vehicle driven for the purpose of distributing the shared update file via wireless communication, such that a receiving vehicle can wirelessly receive the shared update file from the vehicle driven for the purpose of distributing the shared update file and update software running on a vehicle terminal of the receiving vehicle using the received shared update file.

13. A vehicle terminal of a vehicle, the vehicle terminal being configured to perform a method for updating software of the vehicle, in which the vehicle terminal is configured to:

determine whether the vehicle terminal of the vehicle is running out-of-date software;

in response to determining that the vehicle terminal of the vehicle is running out-of-date software, select a target vehicle among neighboring vehicles via wireless communication, wherein the target vehicle is running updated software;

receive a shared update file from the target vehicle via wireless communication, the shared update file based on the updated software;

store the shared update file; and

update the out-of-date software using the shared update file, thereby completing a soft update of the software running on the vehicle terminal of the vehicle.

14. A non-transitory computer readable medium containing program instructions for updating software of a vehicle including a vehicle terminal, the computer readable medium comprising:

program instructions that determine whether the vehicle terminal of the vehicle is running out-of-date software;

program instructions that, in response to determining that the vehicle terminal of the vehicle is running out-of-date software, select a target vehicle among neighboring vehicles via wireless communication, wherein the target vehicle is running updated software;

program instructions that receive a shared update file from the target vehicle via wireless communication, the shared update file based on the updated software;

program instructions that store the shared update file; and

program instructions that update the out-of-date software using the shared update file, thereby completing a soft update of the software running on the vehicle terminal of the vehicle.