SOFTWARE UPDATE METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR VEHICLE

• US 20180102939A1
• Filed: 10/06/2017
• Published: 04/12/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 10/07/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hyundai Motor Company (Hyundai Motor Group), Kia Motors Corporation (Kia Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Hyundai Motor Company (Hyundai Motor Group), Kia Motors Corporation (Kia Corp.)
• Inventors: KIM, Dong Ok, CHAE, Jun Byung, SEO, Kang Woon, YUN, Jin Hwa
• Granted Patent: US 10,630,538 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/004 Error avoidance G06F11/07 and subgroups take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1433 during software upgrading
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/65 Updates security arrangements therefor G06F21/57
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/40169 Flexible bus arrangements arrangements for maintenance or administration involving management of faults; events, alarms H04L41/06; automatic restoration of network faults H04L41/0654
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2012/40273 the transportation system being a vehicle
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/08 Configuration management of networks or network elements address allocation H04L61/50
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/082 the condition being updates or upgrades of network functionality
• 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 67/125 involving control of end-device applications over a network
• 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: H04L 67/60 Scheduling or organising the servicing of application requests, e.g. requests for application data transmissions using the analysis and optimisation of the required network resources admission control or resource allocation H04L47/70
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/0248 dependent on the time of the day, e.g. according to expected transmission activity
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/70 in wireless communication networks

Abstract

An operation method of a first communication node constituting an Ethernet-based vehicle network of a vehicle may comprise waking up by transitioning from a sleep state to a ready state; preventing transmission of network requests to other communication nodes connected to the Ethernet-based vehicle network; and performing update of software. Thus, only a target end node among a plurality of end nodes connected to the Ethernet-based vehicle network can be woken up for update of software so as to reduce power consumption of the vehicle due to the update of software. Also, abnormal operations due to the update of software can be prevented by allowing the update of software to be performed only while the vehicle is not running.

Claims

1. An operation method of a first communication node constituting an Ethernet-based vehicle network of a vehicle, comprising:

waking up by transitioning from a sleep state to a ready state;

preventing transmission of network requests to other communication nodes connected to the Ethernet-based vehicle network; and

performing update of software.

2. The operation method according to claim 1, wherein the transitioning from the sleep state to the ready state is performed at an update reservation time when software of the first communication node is updated.

3. The operation method according to claim 2, wherein the update of software is performed in a case that the software used for the update is identified as being stored in a memory of the first communication node.

4. The operation method according to claim 3, wherein the update reservation time is received from a second communication node connected to the Ethernet-based vehicle network.

5. The operation method according to claim 4, wherein the update of software is performed while the vehicle is turned off.

6. The operation method according to claim 5, wherein a result of the update of software is transmitted to the second communication node after the vehicle is turned on.

7. The operation method according to claim 5, further comprising performing a reboot and checking the update of software after the update of software is completed.

8. The operation method according to claim 7, further comprising restoring previous software before the update when the update of software fails.

9. An operation method of a communicator constituting an Ethernet-based vehicle network of a vehicle, comprising:

waking up at an update reservation time by transitioning from a sleep state to a ready state; and

preventing transmission of network requests to communication nodes connected to the Ethernet-based vehicle network.

10. The operation method according to claim 9, further comprising downloading software from a software center.

11. The operation method according to claim 10, further comprising performing update of software of the communicator using the downloaded software.

12. The operation method according to claim 10, wherein the software is downloaded after the waking up at the update reservation time.

13. The operation method according to claim 10, wherein the software is downloaded while the vehicle is running.

14. The operation method according to claim 10, further comprising transmitting the downloaded software to a specific communication node connected to the Ethernet-based vehicle network when the downloaded software corresponds to the specific communication node.

15. The operation method according to claim 14, further comprising receiving a result of updating software of the specific communication node using the downloaded software from the specific communication node.

16. A communication node constituting an Ethernet-based vehicle network of a vehicle, comprising a physical (PHY) layer including a PHY layer processor, and a controller including a controller processor and a memory storing at least one instruction executed by at least one of the PHY layer processor and the controller processor, wherein the at least one instruction is configured to:

wake up at an update reservation time by transitioning from a sleep state to a ready state; and

prevent transmission of network requests to other communication nodes connected to the Ethernet-based vehicle network.

17. The communication node according to claim 16, wherein the at least one instruction is further configured to:

receive software from a communicator in the vehicle while the vehicle is running;

store the received software in the memory;

receive an update reservation time of the received software from the communicator; and

update software of the communication node using the received software at the update reservation time.

18. The communication node according to claim 17, wherein the at least one instruction is further configured to update the software of the communication node after the vehicle is turned off.

19. The communication node according to claim 16, wherein the at least one instruction is further configured to perform a reboot and check the updating of the software after the updating of the software is completed.

20. The communication node according to claim 18, wherein the at least one instruction is further configured to restore previous software before the updating when the updating of the software fails.