Electronic control unit for vehicle

• US 9,162,684 B2
• Filed: 10/04/2012
• Issued: 10/20/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 10/05/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: DENSO Corporation
• Original Assignee: DENSO Corporation
• Inventors: Enomoto, Hiroyuki, Oda, Shinichiro, Nishiseko, Takafumi
• Primary Examiner(s): To, Tuan C.
• Assistant Examiner(s): SMITH, ISAAC G
• Application Number:
  US13/644,511
• Publication Number:
  US 20130090804A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,111 Days
• Field of Search: 701/32.3, 701/33.4, 701/51, 701/94, 340/435, 340/905
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: B60G 2400/33 Throttle position
• CPC Class Codes: B60G 2400/821 Uneven, rough road sensing affecting vehicle body vibration
• CPC Class Codes: B60G 2400/824 Travel path sensing; Track monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2050/046 involving external transmission of data to or from the vehicle, e.g. via telemetry, satellite, Global Positioning System [GPS]
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2510/0604 Throttle position
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2552/00 Input parameters relating to infrastructure
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2552/05 Type of road, e.g. motorways, local streets, paved or unpaved roads
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2552/15 Road slope, i.e. the inclination of a road segment in the longitudinal direction
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2556/50 of positioning data, e.g. GPS [Global Positioning System] data
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 50/04 Monitoring the functioning of the control system
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/0841 Registering performance data recording measured values G01D; information storage G11B

Abstract

An electronic control unit includes a threshold acquiring element, a behavior determining element and a storing element. The threshold acquiring element acquires a threshold for defining a determination condition. The threshold is set to correspond to a road condition on which a vehicle travels. The behavior determining element determines whether a vehicle behavior satisfies the determination condition defined by the threshold. The storing element stores predetermined operation data of the vehicle when the behavior determining element determines that the vehicle behavior satisfies the determination condition.

Claims

1. An electronic control unit for a vehicle, comprising:

a threshold acquiring element that acquires a plurality of thresholds for defining a plurality of determination conditions;

a behavior determining element that determines whether a vehicle behavior satisfies any of the plurality of the determination conditions defined by the thresholds;

a temporarily storing element that temporarily stores operation data of the vehicle when the vehicle behavior satisfying any of the plurality of the determination conditions in a corresponding one of a plurality of different regions of a storage unit, the plurality of different regions being correspondingly provided for the plurality of the determination conditions;

a road condition acquiring element that acquires an actual road condition on which the vehicle actually travels;

an operation data determining element that determines whether a road condition of each of the operation data temporarily stored corresponds to the actual road condition of when each of the operation data was temporarily stored; and

a formally storing element that formally stores the operation data the road condition of which is determined to correspond to the actual road condition by the operation data determining element.

2. The electronic control unit according to claim 1, wherein the road condition acquiring element acquires the road condition from a navigation device disposed in the vehicle.

3. The electronic control unit according to claim 2, wherein

the threshold acquiring element transmits a type of the vehicle and the road condition acquired from the navigation device to a remote base station, and acquires the threshold corresponding to the road condition and the type of the vehicle from the remote base station.

4. The electronic control unit according to claim 1, wherein the road condition acquiring element receives a position of the vehicle from a position detecting device disposed in the vehicle, transmits the position of the vehicle to a remote base station, and acquires the road condition corresponding to the position of the vehicle from the remote base station.

5. The electronic control unit according to claim 1, wherein

the threshold acquiring element calculates the threshold corresponding to the road condition.

6. The electronic control unit according to claim 1, wherein

when the threshold acquiring element determines that a deceleration operation is indicated based on the road condition acquired by the road condition acquiring element, the threshold defines the determination condition as a lower condition to have an acceleration state as the vehicle behavior satisfying the determination condition earlier than when the determination condition is not lowered.

7. The electronic control unit according to claim 6, wherein

the threshold acquiring element determines that the deceleration operation is indicated when the road condition acquired by the road condition acquiring element indicates a position before the curve.

8. The electronic control unit according to claim 6, wherein

the threshold acquiring element determines that the deceleration operation is indicated when the road condition acquired by the road condition acquiring element indicates a downward slope.

9. The electronic control unit according to claim 6, wherein

the threshold acquiring element determines that the deceleration operation is indicated when the road condition acquired by the road condition acquired element indicates a public parking.

10. The electronic control unit according to claim 1, wherein

when the threshold acquiring element determines that an acceleration operation is indicated based on the road condition acquired by the road condition acquiring element, the threshold defines the determination condition as a higher condition to have an acceleration state as the vehicle behavior satisfying the determination condition later than when the determination condition is not higher.

11. The electronic control unit according to claim 10, wherein

the threshold acquiring element determines that the acceleration operation is indicated when the road condition acquired by the road condition acquiring element indicates a rising slope.

12. The electronic control unit according to claim 1, wherein

when the threshold acquiring element determines that an acceleration state as the vehicle behavior unnecessarily satisfies the determination condition based on the road condition acquired by the road condition acquiring element, the threshold defines the determination condition to a higher condition to have the acceleration state satisfying the determination condition later than when the determination condition is not higher.

13. The electronic control unit according to claim 12, wherein

the threshold acquiring element determines that the acceleration state of the vehicle unnecessarily satisfies the determination condition when the road condition acquired by the road condition acquiring element indicates at least one of an unpaved road and a road under construction.

14. The electronic control unit according to claim 1, wherein

the threshold acquiring element acquires a position of the vehicle from a position detecting device disposed in the vehicle, transmits the position of the vehicle and a type of the vehicle to a remote base station, and acquires the road condition corresponding to the position of the vehicle and the threshold corresponding to the type of the vehicle from the remote base station.

15. An electronic control unit for a vehicle, comprising:

a computer processor, the electronic control unit being at least configured to;

acquire a plurality of different thresholds for defining a plurality of different determination conditions;

determine whether a vehicle behavior satisfies any of the plurality of the determination conditions defined by the thresholds;

temporarily store operation data of the vehicle when the vehicle behavior satisfying any of the plurality of the determination conditions in a corresponding one of a plurality of different regions of a storage unit;

the plurality of different regions being correspondingly provided for the plurality of the determination conditions;

acquire an actual road condition on which the vehicle actually travels;

determine whether a road condition of each of the operation data temporarily stored corresponds to the actual road condition of when each of the operation data was temporarily stored;

formally store the operation data the road condition of which is determined to correspond to the actual road condition.

16. An electronic control unit for a vehicle, comprising:

a threshold acquiring element that acquires a plurality of thresholds for defining a plurality of determination conditions;

a behavior determining element that determines whether a vehicle behavior satisfies any of the plurality of the determination conditions defined by the thresholds;

a temporarily storing element that temporarily stores operation data of the vehicle and a time the operation data being temporarily stored when the vehicle behavior satisfying any of the plurality of the determination conditions in a corresponding one of a plurality of different regions of a storage unit, the plurality of different regions being correspondingly provided for the plurality of the determination conditions;

a road condition acquiring element that acquires a current road condition on which the vehicle currently travels;

an actual road condition determining element that determines an actual road condition when each of the operation data was temporarily stored based on the current road condition and an elapsed time from the time each of the operation data being temporarily stored; and

a formally storing element that formally stores the operation data the road condition of which is determined to correspond to the actual road condition by the actual road condition determining element.