JP2008247053A - Control unit for vehicle - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a control unit of a vehicle for improving reliability against the failure of a power source or an MPU (micro processing unit) by making an inertia force sensor redundant. <P>SOLUTION: The control device of a vehicle includes: a first vehicle operation control unit for controlling the operating state of a vehicle based on an inertial force detected by a first inertial force sensor; a second vehicle operation control unit for controlling the operating state of a vehicle different from the first vehicle operation control unit; and a central unit connected to a second inertia force sensor for detecting the same inertial force as the first inertial force sensor, and communicatively connected to the first and second vehicle operation control units. At least either the first vehicle operation control unit or the central unit includes a failure diagnosing part for comparing the inertial forces detected by the first and second inertial force sensors, and for diagnosing a failure based on the comparison result. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2009,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a vehicle control device capable of performing a redundant comparative diagnosis between an inertial force sensor mounted on an ECU of a vehicle control unit and the same inertial force sensor mounted on a central ECU.

  In addition to an engine control system and a transmission control system, various control systems that control the movement or posture of the automobile are mounted on the automobile. Examples of these control systems include a skid control system, an electric power steering system, an active damper system, an active stabilizer system, an adaptive cruise control system, and a 4WD control system.

  Further, a sensor unit in which an acceleration sensor for detecting an acceleration necessary for controlling these control systems and various angular velocity sensors for detecting the yaw rate, roll rate, and pitch rate of the vehicle are integrated is mounted on the vehicle. Conventionally, the control system individually detects the state in accordance with each purpose, and controls each control system using the acceleration and / or angular velocity detected by the sensor unit.

  Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 62-260283 discloses a vehicle in which a plurality of signals from various sensors mounted on a vehicle are input, the signals are processed so as to be easily used by each control unit, and distributed to each control unit. A sensor signal processing apparatus is disclosed.

  Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. Sho 62-260284 inputs a plurality of signals from various sensors mounted on an automobile, processes the signals so that the control unit can be easily used, and distributes the signals to the control units. In addition, there is disclosed a sensor signal processing apparatus for an automobile that exchanges information processed in each control unit between the control units.

  Further, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 5-262190 discloses an integrated control apparatus for automobiles that reduces the number of wires required for integrated control of automobiles.

In addition, the inertial force sensors such as the angular velocity sensor and acceleration sensor for the conventional VSA system (vehicle stability assist system) are mounted in the vehicle interior as independent units, and the inertial force sensor for other vehicle control. It is known that redundant diagnosis of inertial force sensors is performed by adding another identical inertial force sensor in the independent unit.
JP-A-62-260283 JP-A-62-260284 JP-A-5-262190

  If two identical inertial force sensors are mounted in the same unit as in the prior art described above and a comparative diagnosis is performed, a redundant diagnosis for a failure of the inertial force sensor itself can be performed, but the power supply, ground, LAN (Local aerial network, simply referred to as LAN hereinafter), interface circuit, A / D port, microprocessor unit (MPU) failure, etc., data of both inertial force sensors is used in one failure There is a problem that it cannot be done.

  The present invention has been made in view of the above points, and an object of the present invention is to provide a vehicle control device capable of improving the reliability against a failure of a power supply or an ECU by making an inertial force sensor redundant. Is to provide.

  According to the first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a control device for a vehicle, the first inertial force sensor for detecting the inertial force of the vehicle, and the first inertial force sensor connected to the first inertial force sensor. A first vehicle motion control unit that controls the motion state of the vehicle based on the inertial force detected by the vehicle, and a second vehicle motion control that controls the motion state of the vehicle as a control object different from the first vehicle motion control unit. A control unit; a second inertial force sensor that detects the same inertial force as the first inertial force sensor; and the first and second vehicle motion controls connected to the second inertial force sensor. A central unit connected to the unit so as to be capable of bidirectional communication, and at least one of the first vehicle motion control unit and the central unit includes an inertial force detected by the first and second inertial force sensors. The mutual ratio And, a control device for a vehicle, characterized in that it contains the fault diagnosis unit for outputting the diagnosis result to diagnose the fault based on the comparison results are provided.

  According to the invention of claim 2, in the invention of claim 1, the first inertial force sensor has a wider detection range of the inertial force or higher detection resolution than the second inertial force sensor. There is provided a control apparatus for a vehicle characterized by being set.

  According to a third aspect of the invention, there is further provided a third inertial force sensor that detects an inertial force different from the inertial force detected by the first and second inertial force sensors. The central unit calculates a vehicle momentum different from the inertial forces detected by the second and third inertial force sensors based on the inertial forces detected by the second and third inertial force sensors. There is provided a vehicle control device including a momentum calculation unit for outputting a calculation result.

  According to the first aspect of the present invention, the first vehicle motion control unit on which the first inertial force sensor is mounted and the central unit on which the second inertial force sensor is mounted are independent from each other. It can be avoided that the data of both inertial force sensors cannot be used due to a failure, and the reliability can be improved.

  According to the second aspect of the present invention, since the detection ranges or detection resolutions of the first and second inertial force sensors are made different, failure diagnosis with different accuracy is performed in the first vehicle motion control unit and the central unit. The reliability of the inertial force sensor can be known by transmitting and receiving information.

  According to the third aspect of the present invention, the central unit includes the momentum calculating unit for calculating the momentum of the vehicle different from the inertial force detected by the second and third inertial force sensors. Can be achieved.

  Hereinafter, a vehicle control apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram showing the arrangement of various sensors of a front engine / front drive (FF) vehicle to which the control device of the present invention can be applied.

  A power unit P composed of an engine E and a transmission T is mounted on the front part of the body 2 of the FF vehicle to drive the left front wheel 4a and the right front wheel 4b, which are drive wheels. Left and right brakes 6a and 6b are mounted on the left and right front wheels 4a and 4b, respectively.

  On the other hand, brakes 10a and 10b are mounted on the left and right rear wheels 8a and 8b, which are driven wheels, respectively. Each brake 6a, 6b, 10a, 10b is, for example, a disc brake.

  The tandem master cylinder 14 outputs a brake fluid pressure corresponding to the depression operation of the brake pedal 12, and the brake fluid pressure circuit 16 applies the fluid pressure corresponding to the brake fluid pressure to each wheel brake 6a, 6b, 10a, 10b. To brake the front wheels 4a and 4b and the rear wheels 8a and 8b.

  The front wheels 4a, 4b and the rear wheels 8a, 8b are respectively provided with wheel speed sensors 18a, 18b, 18c, 18d for detecting wheel speeds, and signals from these wheel speed sensors are sent to an electronic control unit (ECU) 20. Entered.

  A steering angle sensor (steering information sensor) 24 detects the steering angle of the steering wheel 22 operated by the driver. A signal detected by the steering angle sensor 24 is input to the ECU 20. In this embodiment, steering is controlled by, for example, an electric power steering (EPS) system.

  A yaw rate sensor 26 detects the yaw rate of the vehicle, and the detection signal is input to the ECU 20. Reference numeral 28 denotes a lateral acceleration sensor (lateral G sensor) that detects lateral acceleration of the vehicle, and a detection signal thereof is input to the ECU 20.

  In FIG. 1, the ECU 20 is shown as one block, but is actually divided into a VSA system ECU, an EPS system ECU, a central ECU, and the like as shown in FIG. 2.

  Next, a vehicle control apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the system configuration diagram of FIG. A first inertial force sensor 32 such as a yaw rate sensor is mounted on the VSA-ECU 30 serving as the first vehicle motion control unit.

  The term “inertia force” used in this specification and claims is defined as including angular velocity and acceleration, and the term “inertial force sensor” is defined as including angular velocity sensor and acceleration sensor. The Yaw rate is a type of angular velocity.

  The first inertial force sensor 32 is connected to a microprocessor unit (MPU) 34, and the output of the microprocessor unit 34 is a LAN driver (local area network network) which is a bidirectional communication control circuit via an I / O interface (not shown). Driver) 36.

  A power supply 38 converts the ignition voltage (12V) to 5V. The 5V power supply 38 is supplied to the first inertial force sensor 32, the microprocessor unit 34, and the LAN driver 36 to drive them.

  The LAN driver 36 enables mutual communication with a central ECU 42 as a central unit, an EPS-ECU 44 as a second vehicle motion control unit, and the like via a bus 40.

  The central ECU 42 includes a second inertial force sensor 46 that detects the same inertial force as the inertial force detected by the first inertial force sensor 32 and a third inertial force that detects an inertial force such as lateral acceleration (lateral G). A sensor 48 is mounted.

  Outputs of the second inertial force sensor 46 and the third inertial force sensor 48 are input to a microprocessor unit (MPU) 50. The microprocessor unit 50 is based on the inertial force detected by the second inertial force sensor 46 and the third inertial force sensor 48, and is different from the inertial force detected by the second inertial force sensor 46 and the third inertial force sensor 48. It has a momentum calculation unit that calculates a momentum, for example, a side slip and outputs a calculation result.

  The output of the microprocessor unit 50 is input to the LAN driver 52 via an I / O interface (not shown). A power supply 54 converts the ignition voltage (12V) into 5V. The 5V power supply 54 is supplied to the second inertial force sensor 46, the third inertial force sensor 48, the MPU 50, and the LAN driver 52 to drive them.

  At least one of the MPU 34 of the VSA-ECU 30 and the MPU 50 of the central ECU 42 compares the inertial forces detected by the first inertial force sensor 32 and the second inertial force sensor 46 and diagnoses a fault based on the comparison result. It has a fault diagnosis unit that outputs the result.

  Preferably, the first inertial force sensor 32 has a wider detection range of inertial force than the second inertial force sensor 46, or has a higher detection resolution. As a result, the VSA-ECU 30 and the central ECU 42 perform failure diagnosis with different accuracy and transmit / receive the information so that another system, for example, the EPS-ECU 44 can improve the reliability of the first and second inertial force sensors 32 and 46. I can know.

  The EPS-ECU 44 as a second vehicle motion control unit has a microprocessor unit (MPU) 56, and the output of the MPU 56 is input to the LAN driver 58 via an I / O interface (not shown). Reference numeral 60 denotes a power source for converting the ignition voltage (12V) to 5V. The 5V power source 60 is supplied to the MPU 56 and the LAN driver 58 to drive them.

  In the present embodiment, the first inertial force sensor 32 is mounted on the VSA-ECU 30, and the second inertial force sensor 46 that detects the same inertial force as the inertial force detected by the first inertial force sensor 32 is mounted on the central ECU 42. At least one of the MPUs 34 and 50 has a failure diagnosing unit that compares the inertial forces detected by the first and second inertial force sensors 32 and 46 and diagnoses a failure based on the comparison result.

  Since the VSA-ECU 30 and the central ECU 42 are completely independent, it is possible to prevent the data of both inertial force sensors 32 and 46 from being unusable even if the power supply or MPU of one ECU breaks down. Can be improved.

It is a schematic diagram which shows the example of arrangement | positioning of the various sensors of FF vehicle which can apply the vehicle control apparatus of this invention. 1 is a system configuration diagram of a vehicle control system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Explanation of symbols

18a to 18d Wheel speed sensor 24 Steering angle sensor (steering information sensor)
30 VSA-ECU
32 First inertial force sensor 34, 50, 56 MPU
36, 52, 58 LAN driver 46 Second inertial force sensor 48 Third inertial force sensor

Claims (3)

A control device for a vehicle,
A first inertial force sensor for detecting the inertial force of the vehicle;
A first vehicle motion control unit that is connected to the first inertial force sensor and controls the motion state of the vehicle based on the inertial force detected by the first inertial force sensor;
A second vehicle motion control unit that controls the motion state of the vehicle as a control object different from the first vehicle motion control unit;
A second inertial force sensor that detects the same inertial force as the first inertial force sensor;
A central unit connected to the second inertial force sensor and connected to the first and second vehicle motion control units so as to be capable of bidirectional communication;
At least one of the first vehicle motion control unit and the central unit compares the inertial forces detected by the first and second inertial force sensors with each other, diagnoses a failure based on the comparison result, and obtains a diagnosis result. A vehicle diagnostic apparatus including a failure diagnosis unit that outputs a power supply.   2. The vehicle control according to claim 1, wherein the first inertial force sensor has a wider detection range of the inertial force or a higher detection resolution than the second inertial force sensor. apparatus. A third inertial force sensor for detecting an inertial force different from the inertial force detected by the first and second inertial force sensors;
The central unit calculates and calculates a vehicle momentum different from the inertial forces detected by the second and third inertial force sensors based on the inertial forces detected by the second and third inertial force sensors. The vehicle control device according to claim 1, further comprising a momentum calculation unit that outputs a result.

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