JP2000134238A - Communication equipment - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To analyze the cause of a communication fault in each communication equipment connected to a network in the case that the communication fault is generated. SOLUTION: This communication equipment is provided with a communication controller 12 for controlling data transmission and reception with the other communication equipment 16 and 17 through the network 18, a volatile memory 13 for storing transmitted and received data, a nonvolatile memory 14 and a CPU 15 for controlling the communication controller. By logging the flow of commands, data and statuses, etc., on the network in the volatile memory 13 at all times and transferring the stream of the commands, the data and the statuses, etc., on the network logged in the volatile memory 13 to the nonvolatile memory 14 when a fault is generated, the cause analysis of the communication fault is easily executed later in each communication equipment connected to the network.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a travel position display device (navigation device) for displaying a current position of a plurality of communication devices connected to a network, for example, a car, etc. together with a map, and other information devices for a vehicle. The present invention relates to a communication device that performs communication between the devices.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art FIG. 14 shows an outline of a conventional vehicle-mounted communication device of this kind. In FIG. 14, reference numeral 1 denotes the entire communication device. A communication controller 2 is connected to the network 8 and implements a physical layer and a data link layer of a communication protocol. Reference numeral 3 denotes a volatile memory capable of reading and writing data, 4 a non-volatile memory for backing up fault information of the network 8 and the like, and 5 a CPU for controlling various parts of the communication device 1 and performing various operations.
(Central processing unit). Communication devices 6 and 7 have the same configuration and are mutually connected by a network 8.

[0005] The CPU 5 controls the communication controller 2, reads data from the volatile memory 3, and transmits the data to other communication devices 6 and 7 connected to the network 8 via the communication controller 2. Data transmitted from the other communication devices 6 and 7 connected to the network 8 is received via the communication controller 2, and the received data is written to the volatile memory 3. If any communication failure on the network occurs during transmission or reception of data to the network 8, the communication controller 2
Notifies the CPU 5 that a failure has occurred,
5 executes the failure recovery processing. If the communication failure does not disappear even after performing the failure recovery processing, the time when the communication failure occurred, the type of the failure,
The contents of the failure and the like are written in the nonvolatile memory 4. By reading this fault information from the non-volatile memory 4, maintenance of the network 8, analysis of communication faults, and the like can be performed later.

When the communication controller 2 receives data from the other devices 6 and 7, it notifies the CPU 5 of a reception interrupt, and the CPU 5 fetches the received data from the communication controller 2 into the volatile memory 3. 7 can be obtained. The data to another device 6,
7 is transmitted to the communication controller 2.
To the communication controller 2 to transfer data from the volatile memory 3 to the communication controller 2.
Sends data to the other devices 6,7.

[0005] The nonvolatile memory 4 is normally used for storing backup information of the CPU 5.
In the communication processing, for example, ID information of the own device is stored. Since the non-volatile memory 4 is backed up by a backup power supply, it is often used when it is desired to always store events and information that have occurred in the past. It can be used as a reference for later network maintenance and failure analysis. The fault information normally stored includes the time at which the fault occurred, the type of the fault, the content of the fault, and the like. The content of the failure often stores error information or an error code of the communication controller.

As described above, in the conventional communication apparatus, information such as the time of occurrence of a failure, the type of the failure, and the content of the failure is stored as communication failure information of the network, and network maintenance and analysis of the communication failure are performed later. Can be used to help.

[0007]

However, in the above-mentioned conventional communication apparatus, the information that can be used for analyzing the communication failure is the failure occurrence time, the type of the failure, the content of the failure, and the like.
There was insufficient information to analyze the cause of the failure. Therefore, a method of estimating the event when a communication failure occurs, reproducing the event, obtaining the flow of commands, data, status, etc. on the network at that time with a network monitor, and analyzing the cause of the communication failure. However, there has been a problem that individual communication devices cannot do this.

The present invention solves such a conventional problem. When a communication failure occurs, a communication apparatus capable of analyzing the cause of the communication failure in each communication device connected to the network. It is intended to provide a device.

[0009]

According to the present invention, in order to achieve the above object, the flow of commands, data, status, etc. on a network is always logged in a volatile memory, and when a failure occurs, the volatile memory is stored in the volatile memory. By transferring the flow of logged commands, data, status, etc. on the network to the non-volatile memory, it is possible for each communication device connected to the network to analyze the cause of the communication failure later. .

[0010]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The present invention according to claim 1 of the present invention provides a communication controller for controlling data transmission / reception with another communication device via a network, a volatile memory for storing transmitted / received data, A non-volatile memory storing the above communication failure information, and a CPU controlling the communication controller to control reading and writing of data to and from the volatile memory and the non-volatile memory, wherein the CPU transmits a command transmitted over a network. And has a function of logging commands received from the network to the volatile memory. When a communication failure occurs, the failure information is written to the nonvolatile memory, and the logging data obtained in the volatile memory is transferred to the nonvolatile memory. And the data transmitted on the network at that time along with the fault information It is a communication device characterized by collecting, logging data such as command, data, status at the time of communication failure occurrence in non-volatile memory, to analyze the cause of communication failure on the network or application level, This has the effect that it can be easily performed by individual communication devices connected to the network.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, the logging data includes source device information, destination device information, transmission / reception distinction, transmission / reception command, transmission / reception status of a communication controller which is a transmission / reception result, and reception data. 2. The communication device according to claim 1, wherein the communication device includes a result of the content determination of (1), and has an operation of easily performing a cause analysis of a communication failure.

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 shows an outline of a vehicle-mounted communication device according to an embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 1, reference numeral 11 denotes the entire communication device. A communication controller 12 is connected to the network 18 and implements a physical layer and a data link layer of a communication protocol. 13 is a volatile memory capable of reading and writing data, 14 is a non-volatile memory for backing up failure information of the network 18 and the like, 15 is a CPU (Central Processing Unit) that controls various parts of the communication device 11 and performs various calculations. ). Communication devices 16 and 17 have the same configuration, and are interconnected by a network 18.

The CPU 15 controls the communication controller 12, reads data from the volatile memory 13, and transmits the data to other communication devices 16 and 17 connected to the network 18 via the communication controller 12. Other communication devices 16 connected to the network 18,
17 is received via the communication controller 12 and the received data is stored in the volatile memory 13.
Is written to. If any communication failure on the network occurs during data transmission or reception to the network 18, the communication controller 12 notifies the CPU 15 that a failure has occurred, and the CPU 15 executes the failure recovery process. If the communication failure does not disappear even after executing the failure recovery processing, the time at which the communication failure occurred, the type of the failure, the content of the failure, and the like are written in the nonvolatile memory 14 as failure information. By reading the fault information from the non-volatile memory 14, maintenance of the network 18 and communication fault analysis can be performed later.

The communication controller 12 includes other devices 16,
When receiving data from the communication device 17, the CPU 15 notifies the CPU 15 of a reception interrupt, and the CPU 15 takes the received data from the communication controller 12 into the volatile memory 13 and
It is possible to acquire the received data from 6, 17. When transmitting data to the other devices 16 and 17, the CPU 1
5 transmits a transmission start command to the communication controller 12 to perform data transfer from the volatile memory 13 to the communication controller 12, and the communication controller 12
The data is transmitted to 6 and 17.

The non-volatile memory 14 is normally used for storing backup information of the CPU 15, and stores, for example, ID information of its own device in communication processing. Since the nonvolatile memory 14 is backed up by a backup power supply, it is often used when it is desired to always store events and information that have occurred in the past. It can be used as a reference for later network maintenance and failure analysis. The general operation of the communication device 11 has been described above.

Next, the transmission operation in the present embodiment will be described using the flow of FIG. In FIG.
When a transmission request is issued from the communication device 15 to the other communication devices 16 and 17 connected to the network 18 (S
1) First, the command to be transmitted and transmission data are recorded in the volatile memory 13 (S2). Then, a transmission command is issued to the communication controller 12 (S3), and the transmission command and the transmission data are transmitted to the destination communication device. It waits until the communication controller 12 notifies the end of transmission (S4). When the communication controller 12 notifies the end of transmission, the status as the transmission result is read from the communication controller (S5). Then, the transmission status is recorded in the volatile memory 13 after recording the transmission command and the transmission data (S6). If the transmission status of the communication controller 12 as the transmission result is normal, the transmission process ends (S7). Thus, the transmission command, transmission data, and transmission status at the time of performing the transmission processing can be recorded in the volatile memory 13 as log data. If the transmission status of the communication controller 12 as the transmission result is abnormal, it is determined that a transmission error has occurred, and the bd log data recorded so far is transferred from the volatile memory 13 to the nonvolatile memory 14 (S8). By transferring the log data to the nonvolatile memory 14, the log data at the time of occurrence of the error is backed up, and this data can be read out later. As a result, it becomes possible to easily perform the work of failure analysis when a transmission error occurs.

Next, the receiving operation in the present embodiment will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. Communication device 11
Are the other communication devices 16 connected to the network 18,
When receiving the reception notification from the communication controller 17 (R1), the communication controller 12 reads the received data (R2). Then, the received data is recorded in the volatile memory 13 (R
3). The reception status as the reception result at that time is read from the communication controller 12 (R4), and the volatile memory 1 after the reception data in which the reception status is recorded is read.
3 (R5). If the reception status of the communication controller 12 as the reception result is normal, that is, if no reception error occurs (R6), it is determined whether the content of the reception data is normal or abnormal (R8). The determination of the received data is performed by determining the contents of the received data so that log data can be obtained even when a communication failure has not occurred on the transfer path of the network 18 and there is an abnormality at the application level. Has been put. If the determination of the received data is normal, the receiving process ends. by this,
Other communication devices 16 and 17 connected to the network 18
It is necessary to acquire the reception data and the log data of the reception status in the volatile memory 13 when receiving from the server.

If the reception status as a result of reception from the communication controller is abnormal, it is determined that a reception error has occurred (R6), and the log data recorded so far is transferred from the volatile memory 13 to the nonvolatile memory 14. (R
7). By transferring the log data to the nonvolatile memory 14, the log data at the time of occurrence of the error is backed up, and this data can be read out later. As a result, it is possible to easily perform a failure analysis operation when a reception error occurs. Also, the reception status as a reception result from the communication controller 12 was normal,
If the content of the received data is abnormal, the log data recorded so far is transferred from the volatile memory 13 to the nonvolatile memory 14 as in the case of the abnormal reception status (R97). As a result, log data at the time of occurrence of an error at the application level is backed up, and this data can be read out later. Then, it is possible to facilitate the work of failure analysis when an error occurs in the application.

Next, a specific example when a communication failure occurs will be described. FIG. 4 shows an example of a sequence when a transmission error, which is a communication failure on a network transmission path, occurs. This shows a case where three communication devices A, B, and C are connected on a network. In the sequence, the communication device A sends a request command to the communication device B, the communication device B sends a response command to the communication device A, and then the communication device A receives a notification command from the communication device C. However, a transmission error occurs when the communication device A sends a request command to the communication device C. FIG. 5 shows log data recorded in the volatile memory of the communication device A at this time. The types of log data to be recorded include transfer source device information, transfer destination device information, transmission / reception distinction, transmission / reception command (including transmission / reception data), and transmission / reception of a communication controller as a transmission / reception result. The status and the result of the content determination of the received data are recorded in log data as an example. 6 and 7 show log data recorded in the communication devices B and C, respectively.

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing that log data has been transferred from a volatile memory to a nonvolatile memory because a transmission error has occurred in the communication device A. Here, exactly the same contents as the volatile memory are transferred to the nonvolatile memory. As a result, the communication log data immediately before the transmission error occurs is stored in the nonvolatile memory, and it is possible to easily perform a failure analysis operation of the communication failure.

FIG. 9 shows an example of a sequence at the time of occurrence of a data error in response data as a communication failure at the application level. This shows a case where three communication devices A, B, and C are connected on a network. In the sequence, a request command is transmitted from the communication device A to the communication device B, and the response command is transmitted to the communication device B.
Sends a notification command from the communication device C, the communication device A receives a notification command from the communication device C, the communication device A sends a request command to the communication device C, and sends response data from the communication device C to the communication device C. This is a case where the response data is sent to the communication device A but the content of the response data is abnormal. FIG. 10 shows log data recorded in the volatile memory of the communication device A at this time. The types of log data to be recorded include transfer source device information, transfer destination device information, transmission / reception distinction, transmission / reception command (including transmission / reception data), and transmission / reception of a communication controller as a transmission / reception result. The status and the result of the content determination of the received data are recorded in log data as an example. Similarly, FIGS. 11 and 12 show log data recorded in the communication devices B and C, respectively.

FIG. 13 is a diagram showing that log data has been transferred from the volatile memory to the nonvolatile memory because an error occurred at the application level in the communication device A. Here, exactly the same contents as the volatile memory are transferred to the nonvolatile memory. As a result, the communication log data immediately before the transmission error occurs is stored in the nonvolatile memory, and it is possible to easily perform a failure analysis operation of the communication failure.

[0023]

As described above, according to the present invention, the flow of commands, data, status, and the like on the network is always logged in the volatile memory, and the network is logged in the volatile memory when a failure occurs. By transferring the flow of the above commands, data, status, and the like to the non-volatile memory, the cause of the communication failure can be easily analyzed later by the individual communication devices connected to the network.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a communication device and a system configuration according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing a transmission processing operation in the embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a reception processing operation in the embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a communication sequence diagram showing an example when a transmission error occurs.

FIG. 5 is a list showing an example of log data recorded by the communication device A;

FIG. 6 is a list diagram showing an example of log data recorded by a communication device B;

FIG. 7 is a list showing an example of log data recorded by the communication device C;

FIG. 8 is a list showing an example of log data of the communication device A transferred from the volatile memory to the nonvolatile memory when a communication error occurs.

FIG. 9 is a communication sequence diagram showing an example when a data error occurs.

FIG. 10 is a list showing an example of log data recorded by a communication device A;

FIG. 11 is a list showing an example of log data recorded by a communication device B;

FIG. 12 is a list showing an example of log data recorded by the communication device C;

FIG. 13 is a list showing an example of log data of the communication device A transferred from the volatile memory to the nonvolatile memory when a data error occurs.

FIG. 14 is a block diagram showing a communication device and a system configuration in a conventional example.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 11 Communication apparatus 12 Communication controller 13 Volatile memory 14 Non-volatile memory 15 CPU 16, 17 Other communication apparatus 18 Network

Continuation of the front page F term (reference) 5B089 GA04 GA25 GB01 HB11 JB10 JB17 KA12 KB03 KC28 KE01 MC03 MC05 5K032 AA06 BA06 DB19 DB22 DB24

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A communication controller for controlling data transmission / reception with another communication device via a network, a volatile memory for storing transmitted / received data, a nonvolatile memory for storing communication failure information on a network, and the communication controller Controlling read / write of data to / from volatile memory and nonvolatile memory by controlling CPU
The CPU has a function of logging a command transmitted over the network and a command received from the network to the volatile memory, and writes failure information to the nonvolatile memory when a communication failure occurs, A communication device for transferring logging data acquired in a volatile memory to a nonvolatile memory, and collecting data communicated on the network at that time together with fault information. 2. The logging data includes transmission source device information, transfer destination device information, transmission / reception distinction, transmission / reception command, transmission / reception status of a communication controller which is a transmission / reception result, and a result determination result of reception data. Communication device.