Vehicle Gateway Wake-Up Control for Battery Power Management

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Solution Overview

Problem

Existing vehicle communication systems face issues with excessive battery drain due to continuous wake-up request signals, leading to potential battery exhaustion and increased processing capacity costs, especially when the vehicle is not in use.

Innovation Solution

A vehicle communication system with a gateway device that relays wake-up requests while considering battery power consumption, refraining from transmitting wake-up signals if deemed unacceptable, thereby reducing unnecessary power consumption without increasing processing capacity.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If the gateway device transmits wake-up request signals to ECUs, then the ECUs can be woken up from sleep mode to wake-up mode for data communication, but the battery experiences excessive power consumption and potential exhaustion

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvewake-up request transmission reliabilityVSAvoidbattery power consumption

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSUse of energy by moving object

Solution Approach 1:

The gateway device performs preliminary assessment of battery power status before transmitting wake-up request signals. By checking whether the battery has sufficient power reserves in advance, the system prevents transmission when power would be depleted, thus ensuring reliable wake-up communication only when energy conditions permit.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

Solution Approach 2:

The system implements feedback control by continuously monitoring battery power levels and using this information to control wake-up request signal transmission. The gateway device adjusts its wake-up signal transmission behavior based on real-time battery status feedback, stopping transmission when power thresholds are not met to prevent battery exhaustion.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #23Feedback

2Use of energy by moving object

If the gateway device continuously monitors and manages wake-up requests, then power consumption is reduced, but the processing capacity and system complexity increase

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvepower consumptionVSAvoidgateway device processing capacity

Core Design Contradiction:

Use of energy by moving objectVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The gateway device performs only the essential minimum processing needed for power management - specifically checking battery power levels against predefined thresholds and making binary decisions on wake-up signal transmission. This partial action approach avoids complex continuous monitoring and analysis, reducing processing capacity requirements while still achieving power consumption reduction.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #16Partial or excessive action

Data Source

PatentUS12445322B2Vehicle communication system

Publication Date: 2025.10.14 SUBARU CORP

AI summary

A vehicle communication system includes a gateway device. The gateway device is configured to receive electric power from a battery of a vehicle, relay communication among multiple communication lines coupled to respective electronic control units, perform, when receiving a signal through any of the communication lines, a sleep wake-up operation by transmitting a wake-up request signal to switch one or more of the electronic control units to be woken up from a sleep mode to a wake-up mode, and refrain from transmitting the wake-up request signal in a case where the gateway device determines in view of electric power consumption of the battery that transmission of the wake-up request signal is unacceptable.