FR2724742A1 - Networked sub=system guidance management system for motor vehicle - Google Patents

Abstract

The sub-system includes sub-systems that have a processor (4) and memory (5,6) storing a table of references and execution codes performed by the sub-system. The information circulating on the digital network is monitored (7) and instructions that activate the sub-system identified from the data stream. Arguments for the instruction are also identified and extracted for use when the instruction is executed. A central controller is programmed to generate the instructions and arguments to the sub-systems, and to send them over the network. At least one of the sub-systems is a graphic display terminal.

Description

 The present invention relates to a system for managing the operation of functional members of a motor vehicle.

 More particularly, the present invention relates to a system for managing the operation of organs connected by a digital information transmission network.

 The appearance of new technologies and the recent and significant miniaturization of all electronic and computer systems, currently allow the integration of electronic systems and the introduction of computer systems on board motor vehicles.

 Thanks to this evolution, more and more complex and efficient services are imagined to increase the comfort of the driver and passengers of a vehicle.

 These new applications which are emerging, such as the integration of radiotelephone systems, navigation and / or vehicle guidance systems, etc., are confronted by their performance and technical complexities with different problems and particular to a problem of simplicity of use.

 These different systems distributed in the vehicle indeed need to be controlled by a user.

 This supposes, consequently, that a computer is capable of centralizing information coming from different organs of the vehicle to restore useful information on, for example, any display member.

 Conversely, at the request of the user, this computer must broadcast the commands to the functional organs concerned. The independent aspects of these systems impose a modular vision of architecture.

In order to take into account from the outset the problems of range diversity linked to the automobile industry, it therefore seems interesting to dissociate the material aspect of an organ from its functional aspect.

 At the same time as this trend, the development of a network architecture for motor vehicles has highlighted the need to communicate ever more intelligent components by increasing the speed and reliability of transmission while reducing the wiring required.

 However, this development is encountering various problems in the automobile industry, in particular concerning the transmission of information, insofar as a motor vehicle constitutes a very highly disturbed environment and in view of the different possible configurations of functional members connected to the network.

 To illustrate these various difficulties, it is possible to take the example of a display member.

 The choice of this example is dictated by the fact that it represents a complex on-board function which can present visual information of all kinds varying greatly from one system to another and from one vehicle to another. In addition, it clearly highlights the problem of range diversity.

 Indeed, the world of desktop computing has shown that multiple solutions are possible for controlling graphic screens of different technologies and different characteristics, namely in size, color, etc.

 However, unlike the conventional conditions of use of this type of equipment, the installation of a screen on board a motor vehicle cannot, in most cases, be carried out near the computer which controls it. This integration constraint makes it difficult to control the problems of transmission immunity, problems which are all the more important as the disturbances on board a motor vehicle are very significant. This implantation problem which is imposed on any motor vehicle manufacturer, more than likely makes a distant arrangement in the vehicle, of a screen and of its control computer. This imperative risks orienting the equipment manufacturers towards costly solutions to allow the propagation of a video control signal inside the passenger compartment of the vehicle.

 In addition, a screen represents such an informative potential that its trivialization in the automobile will undoubtedly be accompanied by increasingly numerous and varied applications. This suggests that a screen can be seen as a common resource used by several computers and therefore authorizing management by multiple sources.

 When we know the importance of the human-machine interface for an application that affects the general public, we must therefore tend towards the search for simple and industrial solutions.

 The field of vehicle navigation assistance was the first to highlight the need to dissociate a navigation system from that of the presentation of guidance information.

 Indeed, the computer responsible for all the invisible operations of the user, namely route calculation, cartographic correlation, etc., has a universal aspect and its task is completely independent of its function of presentation of guidance information. This can be done using a text-to-speech system as well as any screen or display.

 This is the case for a certain number of development vehicles in which the user simultaneously benefits from oral information, symbolic information displayed on liquid crystal displays or with a so-called head-up display, etc., or more complex information such as simplified maps oriented on a screen.

 The visual guidance information which best meets the safety criteria is obviously that which presents the most reduced and synthetic information possible, that is to say typically the symbolic displays on which a crossroads is represented by a set of segments and the direction to follow by arrows. Other additional information can be added such as distances, traffic recommendations, etc.

 However, the navigation computer can also provide multiple services in the fields of information or tourism by rendering at least the equivalent of services that consulting maps can provide.

 It is therefore necessary to take into account all these cases, from the simplest to the most complicated, to arrive at a universal solution optimizing the most common cases but also authorizing all the other possibilities.

 The multiplication of these display means often dispersed in the passenger compartment (center console, combined, etc.), the duplication sometimes necessary (display of information for rear passengers) as well as the diversity of information to be displayed, were at the origin of the idea of piloting the whole of these means of different nature by only one or several computers by using the possibilities of transmission of the digital networks.

 However, this has not made it possible to resolve all the problems mentioned above with regard to the disturbances and the diversity of the functional organs that can be connected to the network.

 The object of the invention is therefore to solve these problems by proposing a management system which is simple and reliable.

 To this end, the subject of the invention is a system for managing the operation of functional members of a motor vehicle, connected by a digital information transmission network, characterized in that at least some of the functional members include a processor of data associated with means for storing a reference table and codes for executing the functions fulfilled by the member and with means for recognizing, among the information circulating on the information transmission network, an order activation of a function fulfilled by this body and control arguments relating to it to implement it.

 The invention will be better understood with the aid of the description which follows, given solely by way of example and with reference to the appended drawing which represents a block diagram illustrating the structure of a management system according to the invention.

 In fact, in this management system, the functions on board the vehicle are divided into standard modules to facilitate the installation of interchangeable functional members and of different ranges.

 We will resume below the illustration of this concept using a display system.

 However, it goes without saying that the concept evoked can be extended to any other functional member connected to a motor vehicle transmission network. Thus a radio and an air conditioning system face the same interchangeability and diversity problems as a screen in a vehicle. In fact, in the management system according to the invention, at least some of the functional organs connected to the network includes a data processor associated with means for storing a reference table and codes for executing the functions fulfilled by the organ and means of recognition, among the information circulating on the information transmission network, of an order to activate a function fulfilled by this organ and of the control arguments relating thereto in order to implement it .

 In fact, this architecture obviously requires grafting an "intelligence" of processing and calculation at the level of decentralized bodies, but this distribution of intelligence is a necessary step to consolidate the standardization of certain elements. Its purpose is therefore to allow freedom from the hardware configuration during software development.

 To use the previous example of the display means, it becomes, in such an environment, easy to control any display (black and white or color screen, liquid crystal display, etc.) by simply associating a library of programs. to this type of human-machine interface module. This software layer is responsible for shaping the standard communication layer between the organs of the vehicle in order to deal only with the cases that the corresponding organ is capable of satisfying.

 In practice, this amounts to listing all the elementary operations (graphics for a screen for example) to be carried out on the functional organ and associating them with unique references.

 These references make it possible to activate sequences of corresponding execution codes on the processor controlling the organ. These can for example be identified by unique action numbers.

 A reference table is then established containing all the functions to be performed, each function being characterized by the type and the number of useful control arguments. I1 then suffices to simply pass through the information transmission network, the reference of the function to be used associated with its control arguments. For example, a simple function of type displaying a rectangle on a screen could expect five whole arguments, four of them imposing the coordinates of the rectangle, the last imposing the display color.

 Of course, the functions are predefined and can be much more advanced by allowing management of icons, menu displays, etc. It is understood that the transmission of information which is established between two bodies is no longer based on physical video management signals or low-level primitives but on a protocol allowing to perform predefined graphic operations and includes only the identification of the function and its control parameters.

 The various information transmitted on the network can be transmitted either by a central information processing unit such as a central computer for managing the operation of the vehicle or by another functional member, connected to the information transmission network and adapted to return certain information relating to its operation to the network.

 The general structure of a functional body forming part of a management system according to the invention is illustrated in the appended figure in which a network for transmitting digital information is designated by the general reference 1. This network of digital information transmission runs along the vehicle and various functional components are connected to it.

 In the embodiment described with reference to this figure, the functional member is any display means designated by the general reference 2 and comprising a display 3.

 This functional member comprises a data processor 4 constituted by any suitable graphics processor associated with means for storing a table of references 5 and of execution codes 6 of the functions fulfilled by the functional member.

 Furthermore, this data processor is also associated with recognition means 7, among the information circulating on the information transmission network, of an order for activating a function fulfilled by this body and of control arguments. relating to it to implement it.

 These means in fact comprise means for detecting information intended for the corresponding member to activate a function fulfilled by it.

 To comply with recommendations for range concepts, it is interesting to identify, not the elementary functions, which are dependent on the organ being treated, for example in the context of a display, drawing a circle does not correspond to a feasible figure on an alphanumeric display, but the action to be carried out, namely for example proposing a menu, activating or deactivating an item from the menu, displaying a destination by means of display or increasing or decreasing the volume for a car radio, etc.

 Thus, by increasing the level of abstraction used in the exchange of information, it becomes possible to maintain a common interface between these modules in order to change only the associated processing and depending on the material used.

 The use of such a concept also facilitates the extension to a hardware configuration of a member receiving commands from several computers.

For example, a computer may be able to send different graphic messages to two separate screens on the same network or else collect information from different input means available to users.

 It can therefore be seen that the control of a function fulfilled by a functional member connected to the transmission network is done by sending on this network an order for activating the corresponding function and control arguments relating thereto and that the corresponding functional unit and more particularly the data processor thereof triggers the execution of this function insofar as it has the execution codes thereof.

 This management makes it possible to solve the various problems mentioned previously with regard to the disturbances and the diversity of the ranges of functional organs that can be connected to the network.

 It is indeed sufficient to manage the network by circulating therein the activation orders and the parameters for controlling the functions fulfilled by the various functional bodies connected to it.

Claims (4)

 1. System for managing the operation of functional members of a motor vehicle, connected by a digital information transmission network (1), characterized in that at least some of the functional members (2) include a data processor (4) associated with means of storage (5,6) of a table of references and codes for performing the functions fulfilled by the organ and with means (7) of recognition among the information circulating on the network of transmission of information of an activation order of a function fulfilled by this body and of the control arguments relating to it in order to implement it.  2. A system for managing the operation of functional organs of a vehicle according to claim 1, characterized in that the activation orders and the control arguments are sent over the network by a central information processing unit.  3. A system for managing the operation of functional members of a vehicle according to claim 1, characterized in that the activation orders and the control arguments are sent on the network by a functional member.  4. System for managing the operation of functional members of a vehicle according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that at least one of the functional members includes display means (3), in that the data processor (4) is a graphics processor and in that the functions performed by it are predefined graphics operations.