SOFTWARE UPDATING APPARATUS AND SOFTWARE UPDATING METHOD

• US 20180018160A1
• Filed: 02/10/2016
• Published: 01/18/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 03/16/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hitachi Astemo Ltd. (Hitachi, Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Hitachi Automotive Systems Limited (Hitachi, Ltd.)
• Inventors: TERAOKA, Hidetoshi, KUROSAWA, Kenichi, NAKAHARA, Fumiharu
• Granted Patent: US 10,514,900 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 16/02 electric constitutive elements
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 16/023 for transmission of signals between vehicle parts or subsystems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/00 Error detection; Error correction; Monitoring error detection, correction or monitoring in information storage based on relative movement between record carrier and transducer G11B20/18; monitoring, i.e. supervising the progress of recording or reproducing G11B27/36; in static stores G11C29/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/65 Updates security arrangements therefor G06F21/57
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/445 Program loading or initiating bootstrapping G06F9/4401; security arrangements for program loading or initiating 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
• 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: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management

Abstract

Provided is a software updating apparatus that can flexibly respond to various situations, including update capacity and use cases of each ECU, in a case of updating control information of a plurality of ECUs. Update control information necessary for update processing, including update data to be newly applied to an ECU, is received from a server and control of the update processing is performed based on the received update control information.

Claims

1. A software updating apparatus that is connected to a server and a plurality of control apparatuses and performs transmission and reception of data, the software updating apparatus comprising:

a first communication unit that receives update control information, which includes update data for each of the plurality of control apparatus and identification information for identifying an application method for applying the update data to the control apparatus, from the server;

a second communication unit that transmits the update data to be applied, for each of the plurality of control apparatuses; and

an update control unit that controls the plurality of control apparatuses via the second communication unit such that the update data is applied based on the identification information.

2. The software updating apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein the application method indentified by the identification information is any one of full update, difference update, and compression and decompression update of the plurality of control apparatuses.

3. The software updating apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein the application method identified by the identification information is designated in the unit of a logical block of a nonvolatile memory that stores software of the control apparatus.

4. The software updating apparatus according to claim 2,

wherein the update control unit gives erasing instruction of a nonvolatile memory of the control apparatus after transmitting the update data to the control apparatus to which the update data is to be applied in a case where the identification information indicates the difference update.

5. The software updating apparatus according to claim 2,

wherein the update control, unit transmits the update data to the control apparatus after giving erasing instruction of a nonvolatile memory of the control apparatus to which the update data is to be applied in a case where the identification information indicates the full update.

6. The software updating apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein the update control information includes power consumption information necessary for applying the update data to the control apparatus, and

the update control unit controls the plurality of control apparatuses based on a result of comparison between a battery level of a vehicle, which is acquired via the second communication unit, and the power consumption information.

7. The software updating apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein update control information to be commonly applied to the plurality of control apparatuses is included in the update control information, and

the update control unit controls the plurality of control apparatuses based on the update control information to be commonly applied.

8. The software updating apparatus according to claim 7,

wherein identification information indicating whether or not user consent acquisition is necessary in executing update is included in the update control information, and

the update control unit determines whether or not to display a start confirmation screen to a user based on the identification information indicating whether or not user consent acquisition is necessary.

9. The software updating apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein identification information for uniquely identifying the control apparatus on an in-car network is included in the update control information, and

the update control unit transmits and receives data to and from the control apparatus based on the identification information for uniquely identifying the control apparatus on the in-car network.

10. The software updating apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein a start condition, under which update processing is startable, for update processing is included in the update control information, and

the update control unit controls the plurality of control apparatuses based on a result of comparison between a state of a vehicle acquired via the second communication unit and the start condition.

11. A software updating method for performing transmission and reception of data to and from a plurality of control apparatuses, the software updating method comprising:

a first communication step of receiving update control information, which includes update data for each of the plurality of control apparatuses and identification information for identifying an application method for applying the update data to the control apparatus, from the server;

a second communication step of transmitting the update data to be applied, for each of the plurality of control apparatuses; and

an update control step of controlling the plurality of control apparatuses such that the update data is applied based on the identification information.