Vehicular Computation Management for Battery-Aware ECU Offloading
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Solution Overview
Problem
Modern vehicles with increasing computational requirements pose challenges to battery energy consumption and management, particularly in electric vehicles, where high energy-consuming applications can significantly reduce the vehicle's range.
Innovation Solution
A system that manages computational tasks onboard a vehicle by operating as a computational hub or hybrid computational hub, utilizing excess electrical energy and computational capacity to offload tasks to external nodes via a wireless communication network, while monitoring energy consumption and communication link performance.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If computational tasks are executed onboard the vehicle using ECUs, then computational requirements are met, but battery energy consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts computational tasks from the vehicle's onboard ECUs and offloads them to external computational nodes. The controller identifies tasks suitable for offloading and transfers them via wireless communication networks, thereby reducing the computational burden on vehicle ECUs and decreasing battery energy consumption while maintaining required computational processing capability.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces external computational nodes as intermediaries between the vehicle's ECUs and the computational tasks. Instead of ECUs directly processing all tasks, the controller acts as an intermediary to route appropriate tasks to external nodes, reducing onboard energy consumption while maintaining computational productivity.
2Adaptability or versatility
If high energy consuming applications are used in electric vehicles, then functional requirements are met, but vehicle range is significantly reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts high energy-consuming computational tasks from the vehicle system and relocates them to external nodes. By identifying applications with high energy consumption profiles and offloading their processing to external computational resources, the system maintains full application functionality while significantly reducing the impact on battery energy reserves and extending vehicle range.
3Productivity
If the vehicle operates as a computational hub providing ECUs to external nodes, then excess computational capacity is utilized, but energy consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies partial action by providing excess computational capacity to external nodes only when the vehicle has unused ECU capacity available. The controller monitors ECU utilization and selectively offloads tasks to external nodes or provides computational hub services based on available excess capacity, thereby utilizing resources efficiently without causing net energy consumption increases.
Data Source
AI summary
Systems and methods are provided for vehicular computation management. The system includes, onboard a vehicle, electric control units (ECUs), a battery, a communication system, and a controller. The controller is configured to monitor energy consumption, operate the vehicle as a computational hub when the energy consumption is less than a threshold, including providing computational resources to an external node, determine whether the vehicle has excess energy and computational capacity when the energy consumption is equal to or greater than the threshold, including determining a usage of each of the ECUs and determining an energy consumption of tasks executing thereon, and operate the vehicle as a hybrid computational hub when the vehicle has excess energy and computational capacity, including providing excess computational capacity of the ECUs to the external node.