JP2006193017A - Vehicle information recording device and vehicle information recording method - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To shorten the time required for recording vehicle information stored in a volatile memory to a non-volatile memory. <P>SOLUTION: A control part 2 determines whether or not the vehicle information showing a failure code is continuously detected during a predetermined control period in normal operation and records the vehicle information showing the failure code in an EEPROM 4 when the vehicle information showing the failure code is detected continuously during the predetermined control period. In the case of a vehicle collision, the control part 2 records the vehicle information other than the vehicle information showing the failure code in the EEPROM 4. Thus, in the case of the vehicle collision, the vehicle information amount recorded in the EEPROM 4 can be reduced, so that it is possible to reduce the time required for recording the vehicle information recorded in a data temporary storage part 7 to the EEPROM 4. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to a vehicle information recording apparatus and a vehicle information recording method for storing and holding various types of vehicle information indicating the state of the vehicle.

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a vehicle information recording device that stores and holds various types of vehicle information indicating the state of a vehicle is known so that the cause of a vehicle accident can be analyzed. In general, such a vehicle information recording apparatus normally records vehicle information in a volatile memory such as a RAM (Random Access Memory), and stores the vehicle information stored in the volatile memory when an accident occurs. and Programmable Read Only Memory) or the like (see, for example, Patent Document 1).
JP 2002-362435 A

  By the way, as described above, the conventional vehicle information recording device is configured to record the vehicle information stored in the volatile memory in the nonvolatile memory at the time of the occurrence of the accident. If it takes a lot of time to record the stored vehicle information in the non-volatile memory and the power supply stops due to a power line disconnection, etc., there is a possibility that all the vehicle information cannot be recorded in the non-volatile memory. There is.

  The present invention has been made to solve the above-described problems, and its object is to reduce the time required to record the vehicle information stored in the volatile storage unit in the nonvolatile storage unit. An object is to provide a vehicle information recording apparatus and a vehicle information recording method.

  In order to solve the above-described problems, the vehicle information recording apparatus and the vehicle information recording method according to the present invention determine whether there is vehicle information that has not changed for a predetermined time in the vehicle information, and change for a predetermined time. If there is vehicle information that has not been recorded, the vehicle information is recorded in the nonvolatile storage unit, and when occurrence of a predetermined event is detected, the vehicle information stored in the volatile storage unit changes for a predetermined time. Vehicle information other than vehicle information that is not recorded is recorded in the nonvolatile storage unit.

  According to the vehicle information recording apparatus and the vehicle information recording method of the present invention, vehicle information that has not changed for a predetermined time is recorded in the nonvolatile storage unit in advance, and when a collision event such as an accident occurs. Records vehicle information other than vehicle information that has not changed for a predetermined time in the non-volatile storage unit, thereby reducing the time required to record the vehicle information stored in the volatile storage unit in the non-volatile storage unit be able to.

  The vehicle information recording apparatus and the vehicle information recording method according to the present invention can be applied to an airbag control unit that controls the deployment of an airbag when a vehicle collides. Hereinafter, a configuration of an airbag control unit according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

[Configuration of airbag control unit]
An airbag control unit 1 according to an embodiment of the present invention is mounted on a vehicle. As shown in FIG. 1, a control unit 2 that controls the operation of the airbag control unit 1 as a whole, a vehicle lateral gravity acceleration (vehicle Acceleration detector 3 for detecting acceleration applied to the vehicle such as lateral G) and vehicle longitudinal gravitational acceleration (vehicle longitudinal G), and EEPROM 4 for storing and holding vehicle information. Further, the control unit 2 includes a collision determination unit 5 that determines whether or not the vehicle has collided according to the magnitude of the acceleration detected by the acceleration detection unit 3, a timer unit 6 that times the control period of the control unit 2, A temporary data storage unit such as a RAM for temporarily storing vehicle information detected by a detection device provided in each part of the vehicle; The control unit 2, the EEPROM 4, the collision determination unit 5, and the data temporary storage unit 7 function as a control unit, a nonvolatile storage unit, a detection unit, and a volatile storage unit according to the present invention, respectively. In this specification, the vehicle information means various signals indicating the state (behavior) of the vehicle, and the various signals may be individually input to the control unit 2 or collectively controlled via the bus wiring. It may be input to the unit 2.

  In the airbag control unit 1 having such a configuration, the control unit 2 executes the data recording process shown below to record the vehicle information stored in the data temporary storage unit 7 in the EEPROM 4. Reduce the time required. The operation of the control unit 2 when executing this data recording process will be described in detail below with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG.

[Data recording process]
The flowchart shown in FIG. 2 starts when the ignition switch of the vehicle is turned on, and the data recording process proceeds to step S1. In addition, after the ignition switch of the vehicle is turned on, the control unit 2 sequentially records the vehicle information in one recording area in the data temporary recording unit 7 as shown in FIG. (For example, in the order of A, B, C, D, E...), The following data recording process is executed.

  In the process of step S <b> 1, the control unit 2 determines whether vehicle information indicating a failure code is present in the vehicle information recorded in the data temporary recording unit 7. If there is no vehicle information indicating the failure code as a result of the determination, the control unit 2 advances the data recording process to the process of step S4. On the other hand, when there is vehicle information indicating a failure code, the control unit 2 advances the data recording process to the process of step S2. The control unit 2 holds, for example, a data table in which the failure code is described, and compares the code indicated by the vehicle information with the failure code described in the data table, thereby detecting the detected vehicle information. It is possible to determine whether or not the vehicle information indicating the failure code is included.

  In the process of step S2, the control unit 2 determines whether vehicle information indicating a failure code is detected continuously for a predetermined control period. When the vehicle information indicating the failure code is not detected continuously for a predetermined control period, the control unit 2 advances the data recording process to the process of step S4. On the other hand, when the vehicle information indicating the failure code is detected continuously for a predetermined control period, the control unit 2 advances the data recording process to the process of step S3.

  In the process of step S <b> 3, the control unit 2 records vehicle information indicating a failure code in a corresponding recording area in the EEPROM 4. Specifically, as shown in FIG. 3A, when the vehicle information 2 and 4 of the vehicle information 1 to 4 continuously indicate a failure code (Fail), the control unit 2 As shown in FIG. 3 (b), only the vehicle information 2 and 4 is recorded in one recording area in the EEPROM 4. When vehicle information indicating a failure code has already been recorded in the previous process, the control unit 2 does not record the vehicle information again, and performs a one-time writing process. According to such processing, the time required for data recording processing to the EEPROM 4 can be shortened. Thereby, the process of step S3 is completed, and the data recording process proceeds to the process of step S4.

  In the process of step S4, the collision determination unit 5 determines whether or not the vehicle has collided according to the magnitude of the acceleration detected by the acceleration detection unit 3. If it is determined as a result of the determination that the vehicle has not collided, the collision determination unit 5 ends the series of data recording processes. On the other hand, if it is determined that the vehicle has collided, the collision determination unit 5 advances the data recording process to step S5.

  In step S5, the control unit 2 determines whether or not there is a recording area in the EEPROM 4 where a failure code is recorded. If there is a recording area in which the failure code is recorded as a result of the determination, the control unit 2 detects the failure code among the vehicle information recorded in the data temporary recording unit 7 as the process of step S6. After the vehicle information other than the information is recorded in the corresponding recording area of the EEPROM 4 (see FIGS. 4A and 4B), the series of data recording processes is terminated. On the other hand, if there is no recording area in which the failure code is recorded, the control unit 2 stores all the vehicle information recorded in the data temporary recording unit 7 in the corresponding recording area of the EEPROM 4 as a process of step S7. After recording, a series of data recording processing is terminated.

  Conventional vehicle information recording apparatuses normally record / update vehicle information in a volatile memory as shown in FIGS. 5A and 5B, and when a vehicle is generated, FIG. 6A and FIG. ), The vehicle data stored in the volatile memory is collectively recorded in the EEPROM 4. For this reason, according to the conventional vehicle information recording apparatus, it takes a lot of time to record the vehicle information stored in the volatile memory in the nonvolatile memory. When the supply is stopped, there is a possibility that all the vehicle information cannot be recorded in the nonvolatile memory.

  On the other hand, according to the airbag control unit 1 according to an embodiment of the present invention, as described above, the control unit 2 detects vehicle information indicating a failure code continuously during a predetermined control period as usual. If the vehicle information indicating the failure code is detected continuously for a predetermined control period, the vehicle information indicating the failure code is recorded in the EEPROM 4. And at the time of a vehicle collision, the control part 2 records vehicle information other than the vehicle information which shows a failure code in EEPROM4. Therefore, according to the airbag control unit 1 according to an embodiment of the present invention, the amount of vehicle information recorded in the EEPROM 4 at the time of a vehicle collision can be reduced, so that the vehicle information stored in the data temporary storage unit 7 is stored in the EEPROM 4. The time required for recording can be reduced.

  As mentioned above, although the embodiment to which the invention made by the present inventors was applied has been described, the present invention is not limited by the description and the drawings that form part of the disclosure of the present invention according to this embodiment. That is, it should be added that other embodiments, examples, operation techniques, and the like made by those skilled in the art based on the above embodiments are all included in the scope of the present invention.

It is a block diagram which shows the structure of the airbag control system used as one Embodiment of this invention. It is a flowchart figure which shows the flow of the data recording process which becomes one Embodiment of this invention. It is a figure which shows the recording state of the vehicle information in the normal time inside the data temporary storage part and EEPROM which concern on this invention. It is a figure which shows the recording state of the vehicle information at the time of the collision occurrence inside the data temporary storage part and EEPROM which concern on this invention. It is a figure which shows the recording state of the vehicle information in the normal time inside the conventional volatile memory and non-volatile memory. It is a figure which shows the recording state of the vehicle information at the time of the collision occurrence inside the conventional volatile memory and non-volatile memory.

Explanation of symbols

1: Airbag control system 2: Control unit 3: Acceleration detection unit 4: EEPROM (Electronically Erasable and Programmable Read Only Memory)
5: Collision determination unit 6: Timer unit 7: Data temporary storage unit

Claims (3)

A volatile storage unit for temporarily storing vehicle information;
A non-volatile storage unit that stores vehicle information stored in the volatile storage unit;
A detection unit for detecting occurrence of a predetermined event;
It is determined whether there is vehicle information that has not changed for a predetermined time in the vehicle information stored in the volatile storage unit. If there is vehicle information that has not changed for a predetermined time, the vehicle information is stored in a nonvolatile manner. A control unit for recording in the storage unit,
When the occurrence of a predetermined event is detected by the detection unit, the control unit stores vehicle information other than vehicle information that has not changed for a predetermined time out of vehicle information stored in the volatile storage unit. A vehicle information recording apparatus that records in a storage unit. The vehicle information recording device according to claim 1,
The control unit determines whether there is vehicle information indicating that the vehicle part is out of order in the vehicle information stored in the volatile storage unit, and indicates that the vehicle part is out of order. When there is vehicle information, it is determined whether or not the vehicle information is detected for a predetermined time, and when the vehicle information is detected for a predetermined time, the vehicle information is recorded in a nonvolatile storage unit. Vehicle information recording device. Recording vehicle information in a volatile storage unit;
It is determined whether there is vehicle information that has not changed for a predetermined time in the vehicle information stored in the volatile storage unit. If there is vehicle information that has not changed for a predetermined time, the vehicle information is stored in a nonvolatile manner. Recording in the storage unit;
It is determined whether or not a predetermined event has occurred, and when the predetermined event has occurred, vehicle information other than the vehicle information that has not changed for a predetermined time among the vehicle information stored in the volatile storage unit is stored in the nonvolatile memory. A vehicle information recording method comprising: a step of recording in a storage unit.

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