IN-VEHICLE AUXILIARY MEMORY STORAGE

• US 20180088931A1
• Filed: 09/26/2016
• Published: 03/29/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 09/26/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ford Global Technologies, LLC (Ford Motor Company)
• Original Assignee: Ford Global Technologies, LLC (Ford Motor Company)
• Inventors: CAUSHI, Brunilda Bleta
• Granted Patent: US 10,140,116 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/1847 specifically adapted to static storage, e.g. adapted to flash memory or SSD
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• 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: H04L 67/1097 for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS]
• 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

Abstract

An embedded modem communicates over a vehicle bus with controllers that each include data storage. The embedded modem queries the controllers over the bus to identify controllers having available storage, such that if the available storage is located on a priority controller, the embedded modem sends received data over the bus to the priority controller. Otherwise, if the available storage is available on a non-priority controller, the embedded modem send the data over the bus to the non-priority controller. The embedded modem queries the controllers over the bus to confirm that the controllers storing the received data are available for data offload, and responsive to the confirmation, requests the stored data over the bus and transmits the stored data over a wide-area network to a telematics server.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

an embedded modem, in communication over a vehicle bus with controllers each including data storage, programmed to

query the controllers over the bus to identify controllers having available storage,

if the available storage is located on a priority controller, send received data over the bus to the priority controller, and

otherwise, if the available storage is available on a non-priority controller, send the data over the bus to the non-priority controller.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the embedded modem is further programmed to:

maintain a listing of identifiers of preferred controllers, and

identify a controller as being the preferred controller according to an identifier of the controller being included in the listing.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the data is diagnostic data to be offloaded over a wide-area network to a telematics server.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the data is a software update received over a wide-area network from a telematics server.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the embedded modem is further programmed to, if no available storage is located, reduce the data to conform to a size of an internal storage of the embedded modem.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the embedded modem is further programmed to:

query the controllers over the bus to confirm that the controllers storing the received data are available for data offload, and

responsive to the confirmation, request the stored data over the bus and transmit the stored data over a wide-area network to a telematics server.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein to confirm that the controllers are available includes confirming that the controllers are not operating in a motive mode.

8. A system comprising:

an embedded modem, in communication over a vehicle bus with controllers each including data storage, programmed to

store data to the controllers over the vehicle bus,

query the controllers over the bus to confirm that the controllers storing the data are available for data offload, and

responsive to the confirmation, request the stored data over the bus and transmit the stored data over a wide-area network to a telematics server.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein to confirm that the controllers are available includes confirming that the controllers are not operating in a motive mode.

10. The system of claim 8, wherein to confirm that the controllers are available includes confirming that the controllers have available processor time to provide the data.

11. The system of claim 8, wherein the data is diagnostic data to be offloaded over a wide-area network to a telematics server.

12. The system of claim 8, wherein the data is a software update received over a wide-area network from a telematics server.

13. A method comprising:

querying by an embedded modem over a vehicle bus to identify controllers having available storage;

sending data from the embedded modem over the bus for storing to a controller indicated as having the available storage; and

responsive to a query of the controller as being available to provide the data, request the stored data over the bus and transmit the stored data over a wide-area network to a telematics server.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising confirming that the controllers are available by querying that the controllers are not operating in a motive mode.

15. The method of claim 13, further comprising confirming that the controllers are available by querying that the controllers have available processor time to provide the data.

16. The method of claim 13, wherein the data is diagnostic data to be offloaded over a wide-area network to a telematics server.

17. The method of claim 13, further comprising, if no available storage is located, reducing the data to conform to a size of an internal storage of the embedded modem.