Vehicle network node module

• US 9,088,454 B2
• Filed: 06/29/2011
• Issued: 07/21/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 11/03/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Avago Technologies International Sales Pte Limited (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Broadcom Corporation (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Yousefi, Nariman, Kim, Yongbum, Walley, John, Chen, Sherman (Xuemin), Diab, Wael W., Ilyadis, Nicholas
• Primary Examiner(s): Pham, Chi H
• Assistant Examiner(s): Rivas, Raul
• Application Number:
  US13/171,622
• Publication Number:
  US 20120106537A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,483 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 50/00 Electric propulsion with power supplied within the vehicle with power supply from force of nature, e.g. sun or wind, B60L8/00; for monorail vehicles, suspension vehicles or rack railways B60L13/00
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 16/023 for transmission of signals between vehicle parts or subsystems
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 16/03 for supply of electrical power to vehicle subsystems or for circuit arrangements for charging batteries H02J7/00
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 16/0315 using multiplexing techniques multiplexing for transmission of signals G08C15/00; multiplexing for electrical communication in general H04J
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 19/03 characterised by material, e.g. composite B60R19/18 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/26 Power supply means, e.g. regulation thereof for memories G11C
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/266 Arrangements to supply power to external peripherals either directly from the computer or under computer control, e.g. supply of power through the communication port, computer controlled power-strips
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/4022 using switching circuits, e.g. switching matrix, connection or expansion network G06F13/4009 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 7/76 Arrangements for rearranging, permuting or selecting data according to predetermined rules, independently of the content of the data
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/008 communicating information to a remotely located station transmission systems for measured values G08C
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/085 using electronic data carriers
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/0866 the electronic data carrier being a digital video recorder in combination with video camera
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/16 Anti-collision systems road vehicle drive control systems for predicting or avoiding probable or impending collision otherwise than by control of a particular sub-unit B60W30/08
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 1/3822 specially adapted for use in vehicles H04B1/3827 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/10 Current supply arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/46 Interconnection of networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/4625 Single bridge functionality, e.g. connection of two networks over a single bridge
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/56 Packet switching systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/74 Address processing for routing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/2433 Allocation of priorities to traffic types
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/6275 : based on priority
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/76 : using dynamic resource allocation, e.g. in-call renegotiation requested by the user or requested by the network in response to changing network conditions
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/821 : Prioritising resource allocation or reservation requests
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/25 : Routing or path finding in a switch fabric
• 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 69/08 : Protocols for interworking; Protocol conversion
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/22 : Parsing or analysis of headers
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/102 : characterised by the element, parameter or selection affected or controlled by the adaptive coding
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/181 : for receiving images from a plurality of remote sources
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/183 : for receiving images from a single remote source
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/08 : Testing, supervising or monitoring using real traffic
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/08 : Load balancing or load distribution transferring a connection for handling the traffic H04W36/22; wireless traffic scheduling H04W72/12
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/40 : for vehicles, e.g. vehicle-to-pedestrians [V2P]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/44 : for communication between vehicles and infrastructures, e.g. vehicle-to-cloud [V2C] or vehicle-to-home [V2H]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/46 : for vehicle-to-vehicle communication [V2V]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/02 : Selection of wireless resources by user or terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/541 : using the level of interference
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/56 : based on priority criteria
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/02 : Terminal devices
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/70 : in wireless communication networks
• CPC Class Codes: Y04S 40/18 : Network protocols supporting networked applications, e.g. including control of end-device applications over a network

Abstract

A vehicle network node module includes device buffers, a network buffer, a switch circuit, and a processing module. The device buffers temporarily store outgoing device packets from, and temporarily store incoming device packets for, vehicle devices in accordance with a locally managed prioritization scheme. The network buffer receives incoming network packets from, and outputs the outgoing network packets to, a vehicle network fabric in accordance with a global vehicle network protocol. The network buffer also temporarily stores the incoming network packets and the outgoing network packets in accordance with the locally managed prioritization scheme. The switching circuit selectively couples the network buffer to individual ones of the device buffers in accordance with the locally managed prioritization scheme. The processing module interprets the outgoing device packets and the incoming network packets to determine types of packets and determines the locally managed prioritization scheme based on the types of packets.

Claims

1. A vehicle network node module comprises:

at least one device ingress buffer operable to store an incoming device packet from one of a plurality of vehicle devices in a vehicle in accordance with a prioritization scheme;

a network buffer operable to store the incoming device packet from one of the plurality of vehicle devices in the vehicle as an outgoing network packet and output the outgoing network packet to a vehicle network fabric in the vehicle in accordance with the prioritization scheme;

a switching circuit in the vehicle operable to selectively couple the network buffer to the least one device ingress buffer in accordance with the prioritization scheme; and

a processing module operable to;

determine a source of the incoming device packet as one of the plurality of vehicle devices in the vehicle;

determine the prioritization scheme based on the source of the incoming device packet; and

categorize the incoming device packet as having a high priority based on the source of the incoming device packet as a vehicle safety device in the vehicle.

2. The vehicle network node module of claim 1, wherein the processing module is further operable to:

determine the prioritization scheme based on a type of the incoming network packet; and

categorize the incoming network packet as having a high priority based on the type of the incoming network packet as a vehicle safety-related mission critical packet.

3. The vehicle network node module of claim 1, wherein the processing module is further operable to categorize the incoming device packet based on a destination of the incoming device packet.

4. The vehicle network node module of claim 1, wherein the processing module is further operable to determine the prioritization scheme by:

accessing one or more databases, wherein the one or more databases include at least one of;

a data input/output database, a network protocol database, an information-entertainment database, a vehicle operations database, and a mission critical database.

5. The vehicle network node module of claim 1, wherein the processing module is further operable to:

convert protocol of the incoming device packet from a particular communication protocol of one of the plurality of vehicle devices into a global vehicle network protocol.

6. The vehicle network node module of claim 1, wherein the processing module is further operable to:

encapsulate, in accordance with a global vehicle network protocol, the incoming device packet that is formatted per a particular communication protocol of one of the plurality of vehicle devices.

7. The vehicle network node module of claim 1 further comprises:

a plurality of device ports operably coupled to the at least one device ingress buffer, wherein a device port of the plurality of device ports is operable to couple to one or more of the plurality of vehicle devices; and

a network port operable to couple to a vehicle network fabric and to the network buffer.

8. The vehicle network node module of claim 1, further comprising a device buffer, wherein the device buffer comprises:

the at least one device ingress buffer; and

at least one device egress buffer for temporarily storing incoming network device packets for the one or more of the plurality of vehicle devices.

9. The vehicle network node module of claim 1, wherein the network buffer comprises:

an ingress buffer for temporarily storing the incoming network packets; and

an egress buffer for temporarily storing the outgoing network packets.

10. A vehicle network node module comprises:

a plurality of device ports operably coupled to a plurality of vehicle devices in a vehicle;

a network port operably coupled to a vehicle network fabric in the vehicle;

a switching circuit operable to selectively couple the network port to the plurality of device ports; and

a device packet module in the vehicle operably coupled to the plurality of device ports, wherein the device packet module is operable to categorize an outgoing device packet from one of the plurality of vehicle devices in the vehicle as having a high priority based on a source of the outgoing device packet as a vehicle safety device in the vehicle and transmit the outgoing device packet for output by the network port to the vehicle network fabric in the vehicle.

11. The vehicle network node module of claim 10, wherein the device packet module is operable to:

interpret the outgoing device packet from one of the plurality of vehicle devices;

forward a high priority packet to a network packet module; and

forward a low priority packet to a corresponding one of a plurality of device buffers; and

wherein the network module is further operable to output the high priority packet to the vehicle network fabric with higher priority than a low priority packet.

12. The vehicle network node module of claim 10, wherein the device packet module further categorizes the outgoing device packet as having the high priority based on at least one of:

interpreting a vehicle network field of the outgoing device packet to identify a type of packet; and

identifying a destination of the outgoing device packet.

13. The vehicle network node module of claim 10 further comprises:

a processing module operable to;

categorize the outgoing device packet from one of the plurality of vehicle devices based on a type of packet, wherein the outgoing packet is categorized as having a high priority based on the type of packet as a vehicle safety-related mission critical packet.

14. A vehicle network node module comprises:

a plurality of device buffers in a vehicle operable to store outgoing device packets from a plurality of vehicle devices in the vehicle in accordance with a prioritization scheme;

a network buffer in the vehicle, when active, operable to;

receive at least some of the outgoing device packets from, and output at least some of the outgoing device packets to, a vehicle network fabric in the vehicle in accordance with the prioritization scheme;

a switching circuit in the vehicle operable to selectively couple the network buffer to one or more of the plurality of device buffers in accordance with the prioritization scheme; and

a processing module in the vehicle operable to;

determine the prioritization scheme based on types of the outgoing device packets, wherein the types of the outgoing device packets includes at least;

a vehicle operation packet and a vehicle safety-related mission critical packet.

15. The vehicle network node module of claim 14, wherein the processing module is further operable to:

establish a wired mode wherein the network buffer is enabled and a wireless communication module is disabled;

establish a wireless mode wherein the wireless communication module is enabled and the network buffer is disabled; and

establish a concurrent mode wherein the wireless communication module and the network buffer are enabled.

16. The vehicle network node module of claim 15, wherein the vehicle network node further comprises:

a wired-wireless module including a plurality of logical switches for selectively coupling a plurality of incoming network packets and a plurality of outgoing network packets to at least one of the network buffer and the wireless communication module.

17. The vehicle network node module of claim 15, wherein the wireless communication module comprises:

a wireless communication unit that includes a wireless buffer, a medium access control layer (MAC) module, and a physical layer (PHY) module; and

an RF transceiver coupled to the wireless communication unit.

18. The vehicle network node module of claim 14, wherein the plurality of vehicle devices includes one or more of:

a mission critical vehicle operation device, a non-mission critical vehicle operation device, a mission critical vehicle safety device, a non-mission critical vehicle safety device, a mission critical electronic vehicle driving device, and a non-mission critical electronic vehicle driving device.

19. The vehicle network node module of claim 14, wherein the processing module is operable to:

establish a wireless mode to communicate one or more of the plurality of outgoing device packets having a lower priority, wherein the lower priority packets include vehicle operation packets and information-entertainment packets; and

establish a wired mode to communicate one or more of the plurality of outgoing device packets having a higher priority, wherein the higher priority packets include vehicle mission critical packets.

20. The vehicle network node module of claim 14, wherein one or more of the plurality of outgoing device packets includes a vehicle network field that indicates the type of the outgoing device packets as at least one of:

a vehicle operation packet and a vehicle safety-related mission critical packet.