METHOD, SYSTEM AND DEVICE FOR NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS WITHIN A VEHICLE

• US 20190313446A1
• Filed: 04/10/2019
• Published: 10/10/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 04/10/2018
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NIO Technology Company Limited (NIO, Inc. (China))
• Original Assignee: Nio Usa Inc. (NIO, Inc. (China))
• Inventors: Kim, Yongbum, Sidle, Stephen Eric, Chen, Luna, Petree, Jerry L., Prabhakara, Suma, Feltovich, George T.
• Granted Patent: US 10,952,243 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 16/0231 Circuits relating to the driving or the functioning of the vehicle monitoring tyres B60C23/00; indicating overspeed B60K31/00; for dash boards B60K37/00, B60Q3/10; for indicating emergencies B60Q1/52; brake control systems B60T; registering or indicating the working of vehicles G07C5/00; measuring distance G01C, e.g. combinations of speed and distance G01C23/00; engine indicators G01L; measuring speed or acceleration G01P
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 1/021 specially adapted to land vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/4035 in which slots of a TDMA packet structure are assigned based on a contention resolution carried out at a master unit TDM/TDMA multiplex systems per se H04J3/1694; hybrid switching systems H04L12/64
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2012/40273 the transportation system being a vehicle
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2101/627 Controller area network [CAN] identifiers
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/48 for in-vehicle communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/70 Services for machine-to-machine communication [M2M] or machine type communication [MTC]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 74/02 Hybrid access
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 74/08 Non-scheduled access, e.g. ALOHA hybrid access H04W74/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/20 Master-slave selection or change arrangements

Abstract

Embodiments of the present disclosure are directed to vehicle communication systems, in particular, toward contention resolution on a shared medium in vehicle communication systems. The present disclosure can provide a modified version of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.3 standard to handle physical layer (PHY), and data link layer'"'"'s (DLL) media access control (MAC) of the wired communication links in the vehicle communication subsystem utilizing a shared medium and half-duplex mode. As a result, the modified MAC and PHY may provide fair access and deterministic latency for shared access to the medium of vehicle communication systems independent of the offered network load.

Claims

1. A method of communicating over a network, comprising:

providing a plurality of data terminal equipment (DTE) to the network;

providing each of the plurality of DTEs with data for transmission on the network, wherein the network is limited to convey the data from one DTE at a time, wherein data transmitted from two or more DTEs results in data collision state;

substantially simultaneously transmitting data by a first DTE of the plurality of DTEs and a second DTE of the plurality of DTEs;

receiving, by the second DTE, a collision signal indicating a collision state, wherein the first DTE continues transmitting;

in response to the collision state, causing the second DTE to initiate a backoff process, wherein the backoff process comprises a determination of a backoffLimit having a value randomly selected as zero or one; and

transmitting data, by the second DTE, upon the selecting the backoffLimit with a value of zero; and

waiting to transmit data, by the second DTE, upon the selecting of the backoffLimit with a value of one, whereby the second DTE waits a period of time associated with a slot time and wherein the slot time is determined as the time for one bit to be transmitted or received by a media access control (MAC) of the second DTE.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the backoffLimit is an amount of time in milliseconds randomly selected from the values of zero and one.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein one of the plurality of DTEs, that has an assigned identifier of zero is designated as the master node.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the backoffLimit is determined randomly from the set of zero and one, wherein zero indicates an immediate transmission and one indicates a delay and wherein the polling, upon selecting the second DTE having a delay of zero, transmits data and upon the polling, upon selecting the second DTE having a delay of one, defers transmission.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the master node of the network is selected from one of the plurality of DTEs.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the master node of the network is selected from the plurality of DTEs, each having a unique identifier, and wherein the master node of the network is selected as the one of the DTEs that has the lowest value of the unique identifiers of the plurality of DTEs.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the backoff delay is less than 100 nanoseconds and the data transmission path along the network, between any two of the plurality of DTEs, is not greater than 15 meters.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the backoff delay is not greater than a frame length transmission time for a data packet utilized by the plurality of DTEs.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising, upon selecting the second DTE for transmission by the polling of each of the plurality of DTEs, selecting for transmission a next DTE selected from an ordered listing of the plurality of DTEs.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein:

signaling the second DTE of the collision state, further comprises signaling each of the plurality of DTEs, other than the first DTE, of the collision state; and

in response to the collision state, causing the second DTE to hold transmission for the backoff delay, further comprises causing each of the plurality of DTEs, other than the first DTE, to hold transmission for the backoff delay.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the backoff process initiated by the second DTE is initiated by the physical ethernet connection (PHY) of the second DTE.

12. A communications system, comprising:

a network;

a plurality of data terminal equipment (DTE) communicatively attached to the network, wherein each of the plurality of DTEs is provided with data for transmission on the network, wherein the network is limited to convey the data from one DTE at a time, and wherein data transmitted from two or more DTEs results in data collision; and

wherein, upon substantially simultaneously transmitting data by a first DTE of the plurality of DTEs and a second DTE of the plurality of DTEs, the transmission of data by the first DTE signals the second DTE of a data collision and the first DTE continues transmitting;

wherein, in response to the data collision, the second DTE initiates a backoff process, wherein the backoff process comprises a determination of a backoffLimit having a value randomly selected as zero or one; and

wherein, upon the selecting the backoffLlimit of zero, the second DTE transmits; and

wherein, upon the selecting of the backoffLimit of one, the second DTE waits a period of time associated with a slot time and wherein the slot time is determined as the time for one bit to be transmitted or received by a media access control (MAC) of the second DTE.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the polling further comprises a round robin polling.

14. The system of claim 12, wherein the backoffLimit is determined randomly from the set of zero and one, wherein the second DTE, having a backoffLimit of zero and upon being selected by the polling, transmits data, and the second DTE having a delay of one, defers transmission.

15. The system of claim 12, wherein one of the plurality of DTEs is selected as the first DTE having the lowest unique identifier of the plurality of DTEs.

16. A data terminal equipment (DTE), comprising:

a network interface to a network;

a data storage comprising data to transmit on the network;

a processor; and

wherein the processor, upon the DTE initiating transmitting the data and receiving data indicating a collision sate, initiates a backoff process, wherein the backoff process comprises a determination of a backoffLimit having a value randomly selected as zero or one; and

transmitting data, by the second DTE, upon the selecting the backoffLimit with a value of zero; and

waiting to transmit data, by the second DTE, upon the selecting of the backoffLimit with a value of one, whereby the second DTE waits a period of time associated with a slot time and wherein the slot time is determined as the time for one bit to be transmitted or received by a media access control (MAC) of the second DTE.

17. The DTE of claim 16, further comprising a physical ethernet connection (PHY) transceiver and wherein the PHY transceiver executes the backoff process.

18. The DTE of claim 16, wherein the processor, upon receiving the polling signal and having a backoffLimit of 1, does not transmit.

19. The DTE of claim 18, wherein the processor, upon receiving the polling signal and having a backoffLimit of 1, reselects the random backoffLimit selected from the value of zero and one.

20. The DTE of claim 16, wherein the DTE is one of a plurality of DTEs, each of the plurality of DTEs having a unique identifier, and has the lowest value unique identifier, executes the polling.