Over-the-air trigger to vehicle interrogator updates

• US 10,235,154 B2
• Filed: 03/09/2016
• Issued: 03/19/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 03/09/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ford Global Technologies, LLC (Ford Motor Company)
• Original Assignee: Ford Global Technologies, LLC (Ford Motor Company)
• Inventors: Vangelov, John Naum
• Primary Examiner(s): Wang, Philip
• Assistant Examiner(s): Wang, Rongfa P
• Application Number:
  US15/064,931
• Publication Number:
  US 20170262274A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,105 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/65 Updates security arrangements therefor G06F21/57

Abstract

A vehicle may subscribe to a topic of a topic tree maintained by a message broker and associated with the vehicle. The vehicle may send, to a service delivery network, an interrogator log enumerating configuration information of the vehicle generated responsive to a trigger message published to the topic by the network, and retrieve a manifest indicating network locations of updates determined by the network from the interrogator log.

Claims

1. A system, comprising:

a vehicle, subscribed to a topic maintained by a message broker and associated with the vehicle, including at least one controller programmed to

send, to a service delivery network server, an interrogator log enumerating configuration information of the vehicle generated responsive to a trigger message published to the topic by the server, and

retrieve a manifest indicating network locations of updates determined using the interrogator log.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one controller is further programmed to include, in the interrogator log, (i) current state information of at least one software component installed on the vehicle and (ii) diagnostic codes of at least one software component installed on the vehicle.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one controller is further programmed to generate the interrogator log based on a data identifier list defining the configuration information to include in the interrogator log and on which of a plurality of vehicle electronic control units (ECUs) the information is located.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the topic is associated with a vehicle identification number (VIN) of the vehicle.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one controller is further programmed to:

download the updates from the network locations;

install the updates to the vehicle;

generate a second interrogator log responsive to completion of the install of the updates; and

send the second interrogator log to the server.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the at least one controller is further programmed to download the updates from the network locations over one or more secure hyper-text transport protocol (HTTPS) connections.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one controller is further programmed to:

send the interrogator log to the service delivery network server over a secure hyper-text transport protocol (HTTPS) connection; and

retrieve the manifest from the service delivery network server over the HTTPS connection.

8. A method comprising:

receiving, by a vehicle processor, a message published by a service delivery network to a topic maintained by a message broker and associated with a vehicle indicating vehicle update availability;

generating an interrogator log enumerating vehicle configuration information responsive to receiving the message;

sending the interrogator log to the service delivery network; and

retrieving, from the service delivery network, a manifest indicating network locations of updates determined using the interrogator log.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising including, in the interrogator log, (i) current state information of at least one software component installed on the vehicle and (ii) diagnostic codes of at least one software component installed on the vehicle.

10. The method of claim 8, further comprising generating the interrogator log based on a data identifier list defining the configuration information to include in the interrogator log and on which of a plurality of vehicle electronic control units (ECUs) the information is located.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein the topic is associated with a vehicle identification number (VIN) of the vehicle.

12. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

downloading the updates from the network locations;

installing the updates to the vehicle;

generating a second interrogator log responsive to completion of the install of the updates; and

sending the second interrogator log to the service delivery network.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the network locations include at least one universal resource locator (URL) served by a web server of the service delivery network.

14. A non-transitory computer-readable medium including instructions that when executed by a computing system of a vehicle cause the vehicle to:

retrieve a manifest of service delivery network locations for updates served by a web server, the updates selected based on a log having vehicle configuration information compiled by the vehicle computing system in response to receiving a message published to a vehicle-subscribed topic maintained by a message broker indicating vehicle update availability.

15. The medium of claim 14, wherein the log includes (i) current state information of at least one software component installed on the vehicle and (ii) diagnostic codes of at least one software component installed on the vehicle.

16. The medium of claim 14, wherein the log is generated based on a data identifier list defining the configuration information to include in the log and on which of a plurality of vehicle electronic control units (ECUs) the information is located.

17. The medium of claim 14, wherein the topic is associated with a vehicle identification number (VIN) of the vehicle.

18. The medium of claim 14, further comprising instructions that, when executed by the computing system of the vehicle, cause the vehicle to:

download the updates from the network locations;

install the updates to the vehicle;

generate a second log after the install; and

publish the second log to the topic.

19. The medium of claim 18, wherein the network locations include at least one universal resource locator (URL) served by a web server of the service delivery network.