Vehicle ECU Sleep State Substitution System
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Solution Overview
Problem
As the number of control devices in vehicles increases, so does their power consumption, leading to poorer fuel economy, and existing solutions for reducing power consumption, such as putting devices into sleep states, can cause network failures and abnormal vehicle behaviors if not managed properly.
Innovation Solution
A control device switching system that includes a communication control device and substitute candidate devices capable of taking over data transmission processes, with a substitute transmission acceptability determining unit to assess and assign capable substitutes before the communication control device enters a sleep or power-off state, ensuring reliable data transmission and preventing network failures.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Use of energy by moving object
If control devices are put into sleep state or power-off to reduce power consumption, then power consumption decreases, but network failures and abnormal vehicle behaviors occur due to inability to take over data transmission
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by having the communication control device determine a substitute device before entering sleep state or power-off. The substitution request is transmitted in advance to the determined substitute device, ensuring that data transmission can be seamlessly taken over without causing network failures or abnormal vehicle behaviors.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary mechanism through the substitute device that mediates data transmission when the communication control device is in sleep state or power-off. The substitute device acts as a intermediary to maintain network communication, preventing network failures while allowing power consumption reduction.
2Use of energy by moving object
If transmission-reception control device takes over data transmission, then power consumption is reduced, but real-timeness is lost when the control device is under high processing load or performing important processes
Solution Approach 1:
The patent determines the substitute device before the communication control device enters sleep state or power-off, and transmits the substitution request in advance. This preliminary action ensures that the substitute device is ready to take over data transmission immediately, maintaining real-timeness even when the communication control device is under high processing load.
3Reliability
If multiple substitute candidate devices are available, then reliability is improved through redundancy, but device complexity increases due to selection and management overhead
Solution Approach 1:
The communication control device determines a substitute device in advance from multiple substitute candidate devices before entering sleep state or power-off. This preliminary determination simplifies the management complexity by pre-selecting the substitute device, avoiding the need for complex real-time selection processes while maintaining reliability through redundancy.
Data Source
AI summary
Before a communication control device ECU falls into a sleep state or a power-off state, a substitution request is transmitted to an ECU, among substitute candidate devices ECU to ECU, that is determined by a substitute transmission acceptability determining unit as being capable of taking over the communication control device. A substitution-capable processing load quantity, a substitution-capable process importance level, or a failure determination result of each of the ECUs is used as determination criteria when the substitute transmission acceptability determining unit of the ECU determines a substitute device, and the determination is carried out in an order that takes into consideration the process importance level of each of the ECUs during travelling or at a standstill, to prevent failures in a network or abnormal behaviors of a vehicle.