WIRE BREAK DETECTION IN REDUNDANT COMMUNICATIONS

• US 20160025795A1
• Filed: 10/02/2015
• Published: 01/28/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 05/07/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Tesla Inc.
• Original Assignee: Tesla Motors Incorporated (Tesla Inc.)
• Inventors: Martin, Nathaniel B., Dimen, Ian C., Crowder, S. Douglas
• Granted Patent: US 9,568,534 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 2270/145 Structure borne vibrations
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 3/0023 Detecting, eliminating, remedying or compensating for drive train abnormalities, e.g. failures within the drive train
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 3/0092 with use of redundant elements for safety purposes
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 3/04 Cutting off the power supply under fault conditions protective devices and circuit arrangements in general H01H; H02H
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 16/023 for transmission of signals between vehicle parts or subsystems
• CPC Class Codes: G01R 31/006 on road vehicles, e.g. automobiles or trucks testing of ignition installations peculiar to internal combustion engines F02P17/00
• CPC Class Codes: G01R 31/28 Testing of electronic circuits, e.g. by signal tracer EMC, EMP or similar testing of electronic circuits G01R31/002; testing for short-circuits, discontinuities, leakage or incorrect line connection G01R31/50; checking computers or computer components G06F11/00; checking static stores for correct operation G11C29/00 ; testing receivers or transmitters of transmission systems H04B17/00
• CPC Class Codes: G01R 31/54 Testing for continuity
• CPC Class Codes: G01R 31/58 Testing of lines, cables or conductors testing of electric windings G01R31/72
• CPC Class Codes: G01R 31/59 while the cable continuously passes the testing apparatus, e.g. during manufacture
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3203 Power management, i.e. event-based initiation of a power-saving mode
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/4247 on a daisy chain bus
• CPC Class Codes: H01M 2010/4271 Battery management systems including electronic circuits, e.g. control of current or voltage to keep battery in healthy state, cell balancing
• CPC Class Codes: H01M 2010/4278 Systems for data transfer from batteries, e.g. transfer of battery parameters to a controller, data transferred between battery controller and main controller
• CPC Class Codes: H01M 2220/20 Batteries in motive systems, e.g. vehicle, ship, plane
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/12 Arrangements for remote connection or disconnection of substations or of equipment thereof
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/40039 Details regarding the setting of the power status of a node according to activity on the bus
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/40052 High-speed IEEE 1394 serial bus bus transfer protocol on a daisy chain bus using an embedded synchronisation G06F13/426
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/437 Ring fault isolation or reconfiguration for SDH/SONET ring networks H04J3/085
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 : Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/50 : in wire-line communication networks, e.g. low power modes or reduced link rate
• CPC Class Codes: Y02E 60/10 : Energy storage using batteries
• CPC Class Codes: Y02T 90/16 : Information or communication technologies improving the operation of electric vehicles

Abstract

A system and method for low-cost, fault tolerant, EMI robust data communications, particularly for an EV environment.

Claims

1-14. -14. (canceled)

15. A battery electronics system comprising:

a host circuitry serving as a host in the battery electronics system;

multiple client circuitries, each serving as a client in the battery electronics system and assigned to a respective one of multiple battery modules;

one or more conductors forming a daisy-chain loop that begins at the host circuitry, extends to each of the client circuitries in sequence, and ends at the host circuitry, wherein the host is configured to send, through the daisy-chain loop, a packet having a start-of-packet identifier defined by a period of signal inactivity; and

in each of the multiple client circuitries;

a receiver configured to receive, through the daisy-chain loop, a transmission having an initial period of signal inactivity and a subsequent period of signal activity; and

a comparator configured to compare the initial period of signal inactivity to the subsequent period of signal activity.

16. The battery electronics system of claim 15, further comprising an address register in each of the client circuitries, wherein a common value is initially stored in each of the address registries, the common value indicating that the corresponding client is unaddressed in the battery electronics system, wherein the host is configured to send an enumeration message to cause assignment of a non-illegal address to one of the clients.

17. The battery electronics system of claim 16, wherein the one of the clients stores a new address from the enumeration message in its address register and sends a modified enumeration message to a next one of the clients in the daisy-chain loop, the modified enumeration message instructing the next one of the clients not to update its address register based on the modified enumeration message.

18. The battery electronics system of claim 17, wherein each of the client circuitries implements a data transmission protocol in which any of the clients that receives the packet directly from the host, or from a next client upstream in the daisy-chain loop, shall retransmit the received packet without modification to a next client downstream in the daisy-chain loop, or directly to the host, and wherein the data transmission protocol makes an exception for sending the modified enumeration message in response to receiving the enumeration message.

19. The battery electronics system of claim 15, wherein the conductors include at least:

a serial data wire, a redundancy data wire, a power wire, a ground wire and a fault wire.

20. The battery electronics system of claim 15, further comprising, in each of the client circuitries, a break detection circuit for the one or more conductors.

21. The battery electronics system of claim 15, further comprising an isolator circuit in each of the client circuitries, each of the isolator circuits having a communications side toward the one or more conductors, and a local side toward the respective client circuitry.

22. The battery electronics system of claim 21, wherein the client circuitry is configured to turn off power to the local side unless:

(i) communication with another client or the host is active, or (ii) the client circuitry is polling the one or more conductors, or (iii) a wake receiver channel of the isolator circuit asserts a wake signal from the host.

23. The battery electronics system of claim 15, further comprising two receivers in the host circuitry such that upon an interruption of the one or more conductors, a signal path exists to the host circuitry from each of the client circuitries.

24. The battery electronics system of claim 15, wherein at least a portion of the one or more conductors is routed through a region of an electrically noisy environment having a time-varying magnetic field capable of generating a noise induced signal having a peak magnitude on an order of a threshold magnitude of data signals transmitted over the one or more conductors.

25. A method comprising:

sending, from a host in a battery electronics system, a packet having a start-of-packet identifier defined by a period of signal inactivity, the battery electronics system including one or more conductors forming a daisy-chain loop that begins at the host, extends to each of multiple clients in sequence, and ends at the host;

receiving the packet in each of the multiple clients, each client receiving the packet either directly from the host or from a next client upstream in the daisy-chain loop, the packet having an initial period of signal inactivity and a subsequent period of signal activity; and

comparing, in each of the multiple clients, the initial period of signal inactivity of the start-of-packet identifier to the subsequent period of signal activity.

26. The method of claim 25, wherein each of the clients has an address register and wherein a common value is initially stored in each of the address registries, the common value indicating that the corresponding client is unaddressed in the battery electronics system, the method further comprising sending, from the host, an enumeration message to cause assignment of a non-illegal address to one of the clients.

27. The method of claim 26, further comprising storing a new address from the enumeration message in the address register of the one of the clients, and sending a modified enumeration message to a next one of the clients in the daisy-chain loop, the modified enumeration message instructing the next one of the clients not to update its address register based on the modified enumeration message.

28. The method of claim 27, wherein the method comprises retransmitting the packet without modification from any of the clients to a next client downstream in the daisy-chain loop, or directly to the host, except when sending the modified enumeration message in response to receiving the enumeration message.

29. The method of claim 25, further comprising performing break detection for the one or more conductors in each of the clients.

30. The method of claim 25, further comprising isolating, in each of the clients, a communications side toward the one or more conductors from a local side toward the respective client.

31. The method of claim 30, further comprising turning off, in each of the clients, power to the local side unless:

(i) communication with another client or the host is active, or (ii) the client is polling the one or more conductors, or (iii) the host sends a wake signal.