Vehicle VM Power State Coordination to Prevent Crash Risks
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Solution Overview
Problem
Modern vehicles with complex on-board control systems hosting multiple virtual machines require a sophisticated power management strategy due to differing power needs among various applications, which can lead to issues like application crashes when power states are changed abruptly.
Innovation Solution
A vehicle control system with a global power state and local power states for each virtual machine, managed by a hypervisor and power manager, determines and updates power states based on vehicle parameter signals, ensuring critical tasks are completed before transitioning to lower power modes.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of energy
If the telematics stack is treated as the master unit and requests the vehicle controller to go in Listen mode, then power consumption is reduced, but other virtual machines may be shut down while executing critical code causing application crashes
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by checking the execution state of each virtual machine before transitioning to Listen mode. The power management module identifies which VMs are in critical execution phases (file system operations, SOTA updates) and prevents their shutdown until completion, ensuring reliable power state transitions while maintaining energy efficiency.
2Loss of energy
If the vehicle controller shuts down all virtual machines to reduce power consumption, then energy loss is reduced, but critical tasks may be interrupted causing system failures
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies local quality by treating each virtual machine individually with different power management policies based on its current state and criticality. Instead of a blanket shutdown approach, the power management module selectively manages power states for each VM, allowing critical tasks to complete while still achieving overall power reduction when appropriate.
3Adaptability or versatility
If the vehicle controller supports power management for multiple virtual machines with different power needs, then adaptability is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The power management module acts as an intermediary between the telematics stack and other virtual machines, coordinating power state transitions. This mediator receives power mode requests, evaluates the state of all VMs, determines safe transition points, and executes coordinated shutdowns, thereby managing complexity centrally while maintaining flexibility for individual VM requirements.
Data Source
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AI summary
A vehicle control system comprising one or more controllers, the vehicle control system comprising a global power state and comprising at least two virtual machines being hosted on the one or more controllers wherein each virtual machine has a local power state, the vehicle control system configured to: receive a vehicle parameter signal indicative of a required global power state of the vehicle control system; and determine a local power state for each virtual machine in dependence on the received vehicle parameter signal; update a current local power state of each virtual machine to the respective determined local power state therefor.