Method for determining the status of a driver warning system for preventing impermissible exhaust emissions from a vehicle

Abstract

A method for determining the state of a driver warning system for preventing impermissible exhaust emissions of a vehicle (10), which has an internal combustion engine (12) with an exhaust aftertreatment system (15) and an on-board monitoring system (38), is described, comprising the following steps: - collecting a plurality of independent on-board monitoring data records (44-52) using the on-board monitoring system (38), - evaluating a defined number of the individual on-board monitoring data records (44-52) in an evaluation unit (42), - transmitting the evaluations to a driver warning system coordinator (54), - transforming each evaluation of the individual on-board monitoring data records (44-52) in the driver warning system coordinator (54) into its own bit submask (56-64), which has three binary digits, one of which takes the value 1 and the other two the value 0 depending on the evaluation.- Transferring the values ​​of the bit submasks (56-64) to defined positions of three higher-level bitmasks (66, 67, 68), each of which has a number of binary digits corresponding to the number of lower-level bitmasks (56-64), whereby each first binary digit of each bit submask (56-64) is assigned a defined binary digit in the first higher-level bitmask (66), each second binary digit of each bit submask (56-64) is assigned the same defined binary digit in the second higher-level bitmask (67), and each third binary digit of each bit submask (56-64) is assigned the same defined binary digit in the third higher-level bitmask (68), - Assigning and outputting a state of the driver warning system depending on the binary digits of the three higher-level bitmasks (66, 67, 68) that are assigned the value 1. This enables the tracing of the driver warning system states.