DATA RECORDER

• US 20120310474A1
• Filed: 06/01/2012
• Published: 12/06/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 06/03/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: DENSO Corporation
• Original Assignee: DENSO Corporation
• Inventors: SAKAKIBARA, Tadaaki
• Granted Patent: US 8,798,854 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 701/33.4
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/085 using electronic data carriers

Abstract

A data recorder mounted to a vehicle is disclosed. When detecting a specific behavior of the vehicle, the data recorder determines whether or not a presently-occurring failure detected by a failure detector of the vehicle is a cause of occurrence of the specific behavior. When the presently-occurring failure is not the cause of occurrence of the specific behavior, the data recorder is permitted to record a control data in a non-volatile data storage device. When the presently-occurring failure is the cause of occurrence of the specific behavior, the record processing device is prohibited from recording the control data in the non-volatile data storage device.

Claims

1. A data recorder mounted to a vehicle to which a failure detector is mounted, the failure detector being configured to (i) make, for multiple types of failure, a determination of whether or not a failure is occurring, and (ii) record failure information indicating an occurrence of the failure in a failure information storage unit upon determining that the failure is occurring, the data recorder comprising:

a behavior detection device that detects a specific behavior of the vehicle, the specific behavior being defined as a behavior that can occur in conjunction with a driver'"'"'s operation of the vehicle;

a record processing device that records a predetermined control data of the vehicle in a non-volatile data storage device when the behavior detection device detects the specific behavior of the vehicle; and

a cause determination device that determines, in response to detection of the specific behavior by the behavior detection device, whether or not a presently-occurring failure is a cause of occurrence of the specific behavior, wherein the presently-occurring failure is the failure that is occurring according to a result of the determination made by the failure detector,

wherein;

when the cause determination device determines that the presently-occurring failure is not the cause of occurrence of the specific behavior, the record processing device is permitted to record the control data in the non-volatile data storage device; and

when the cause determination device determines that the presently-occurring failure is the cause of occurrence of the specific behavior, the record processing device is prohibited from recording the control data in the non-volatile data storage device.

2. The data recorder according to claim 1, wherein:

in response to the detection of the specific behavior by the behavior detection device, the cause determination device determines whether or not there is a behavior-inducible failure in the presently-occurring failure;

the behavior-inducible failure is a failure that can cause occurrence of the specific behavior; and

when there is the behavior-inducible failure in the presently-occurring failure, the cause determination device determines that the presently-occurring failure is the cause of occurrence of the specific behavior.

3. The data recorder according to claim 2, wherein:

the cause determination device includes

a counter configured to count the behavior-inducible failure detected by the failure detector, thereby providing a detection count of the behavior-inducible failure;

upon determining that the behavior-inducible failure is contained in the presently-occurring failure,

the cause determination device determines whether or not the detection count of the behavior-inducible failure contained in the presently-occurring failure is smaller than a predetermined value, in order to determine whether or not the presently-occurring failure is the cause of occurrence of the specific behavior; and

when the detection count of the behavior-inducible failure contained in the presently-occurring failure is smaller than the predetermined value, the cause determination device determines that the behavior-inducible failure contained in the presently-occurring failure is the cause of occurrence of the specific behavior.

4. The data recorder according to claim 3, wherein:

the detection count, which is provided by the counter, is initialized to zero upon receipt of an initialization request transmitted from an external of the data recorder.

5. The data recorder according to claim 2, wherein:

the data recorder acquires failure type information, which indicates which type of failure is the behavior-including failure, from an external of the data recorder by wireless communication and records the acquired failure type information in a predetermined storage area; and

the cause determination device identifies the behavior-inducible failure based on the failure type information stored in the storage area.

6. The data recorder according to claim 1, wherein:

in response to the detection of the specific behavior by the behavior detection device, the record processing device records the control data in a temporary data memory other than the non-volatile data storage device; and

when the record processing device is permitted to record the control data in the non-volatile data storage device, the control data in the temporary data memory is recorded in the non-volatile data storage device by the record processing device.

7. The data recorder according to claim 1, wherein the data recorder is equipped in an electronic control unit that includes the failure detector.