JP2010009326A - Built-in controller - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a built-in controller for analyzing variability of a software product system, and controlling equipment. <P>SOLUTION: This built-in controller is configured of software components 31 and 32 corresponding to a plurality of arithmetic formulas of control variables; a call interface 33, product definition software 34 and control basic software 4. When the control basic software 4 executes the call interface 33, the call interface 33 determines which of the software components 31 or 32 should be executed by referring to the product definition software 34 and executes it. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2010,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to an embedded controller for controlling a device.

  Conventionally, there is a method in which software is configured by a plurality of independent software components, a desired function is realized by a combination of software components, and reuse is performed in units of software components (for example, Patent Document 1).

  Conventionally, as a built-in controller for the purpose of software reuse in a product line composed of similar products, there is a method for converting software into components corresponding to the processors, electronic circuits, sensors, and actuators constituting the built-in controller. There is (for example, Patent Document 2).

JP 2004-54683 A JP 2000-97102 A JP 2004-199533 A

  As an application target of software technology, there is so-called embedded software that is embedded in a device such as an automobile or a mobile phone to control the target. Advantages of such control by embedded software include that it is possible to realize flexible and advanced control compared to conventional mechanical mechanisms and electric circuit systems, and that many derivative products can be developed by changing software.

  In the past, software was developed for each target product, or differences were developed based on similar products. However, with the expansion of the application range of embedded software, the number of derived products and the scale of software have increased, and thus there has been a demand for significant improvement in development efficiency.

  In order to solve the above-mentioned problem, as shown in Patent Document 1, a technology is disclosed in which software is converted into parts based on a viewpoint (MVC model) unique to a user interface and reused in units of software parts. However, no consideration is given to how to make components in the device control system.

  Further, in Patent Document 2, in an automobile control system which is an example of a device control system, software is hierarchized into application software corresponding to a control target such as an engine and basic software corresponding to hardware of an embedded controller. A technique for providing software components corresponding to the hardware of an embedded controller such as a sensor, an actuator, a peripheral circuit, and a processor in the software is disclosed. However, componentization of application software corresponding to a controlled object is limited to components for each controlled object such as an engine and a transmission. In the development of an embedded controller, for example, there are cases where control target devices are different even if the hardware configuration of the embedded controller is the same, such as an engine cylinder arrangement. Therefore, there is a problem that application software must be changed for each device to be controlled, and reusability is low.

  In addition, in Patent Document 3 as a conventional technique, with regard to componentization of application software, after providing basic control software for managing the execution order of software components and software components corresponding to control calculation data, an execution procedure is performed for each software component. There is a technique for improving the reusability of control basic software by providing a common interface to absorb changes in arguments and return values when executing software components. However, when the configuration of the control target device is changed, the arithmetic expression itself of the control arithmetic data may be different. In order to cope with the change of the arithmetic expression, the software component to be combined has to be changed, and the control basic software has to be changed. Therefore, there is a problem that the reusability of the application software is low.

  An object of the present invention is to solve the above-described problems and improve the reusability of application software corresponding to a control target device.

  To achieve the above object, the present invention relates to a signal input unit that takes in an input signal from the outside and converts it into data, a processor that processes the input signal that has been converted into data, and calculates control data; and Embedded controller comprising: a signal output unit that outputs a control signal to a device connected to the device; and a memory that stores embedded software for causing the processor to execute the calculation. The embedded software includes a plurality of control function software and , Application software configured with product definition software that defines the product specifications to be controlled, and activation of the control function software, and reading of the input signal and the control signal in response to a request from the control function software The control function software includes a plurality of software components and the software. Control basic software for managing the execution order of the component, and call interface software corresponding to each execution call of at least one of the software components by the control basic software, and a plurality of the software components having the call interface It is characterized by having a soft part variation.

  Furthermore, in the embedded controller according to the present invention, the software component variation is provided corresponding to the product specifications to be controlled.

  Furthermore, the present invention is an embedded controller, wherein the call interface software calls an appropriate software component from the software component variation based on the product specification defined in the product definition software.

  Furthermore, in the embedded controller according to the present invention, the startup procedure of the call interface is the same as the startup procedure of the software component, and is converted into the startup procedure of the software component variation based on the product specification. The execution call of the software component is performed.

  Furthermore, in the embedded controller according to the present invention, the call interface refers to only one item of the product specification for each call interface.

  Furthermore, in the embedded controller according to the present invention, the product specification includes at least one of a mechanical configuration to be controlled, a product destination, and an externally connected device configuration. It is a feature.

  Furthermore, in the embedded controller according to the present invention, the product specification corresponds to a design element that differs between products in the product series to which the control target belongs.

  Furthermore, the present invention is an embedded controller, wherein the software component variation includes only software components that are executed and called by the call interface based on the product specifications to be controlled.

  Furthermore, the present invention is a built-in controller, wherein the control object is an internal combustion engine for automobiles, and the product specifications include at least the number of cylinders, cylinder arrangement, throttle type, fuel injection method, valve drive mechanism, presence or absence of a supercharger, It includes any one of transmission type, piston shape, number of intake ports, number of exhaust ports, internal combustion engine cooling system, fuel type, number of strokes, shipping country, and corresponding exhaust regulations.

  According to the embedded controller of the present invention, a plurality of software component variations corresponding to the product specifications of the device to be controlled are provided, product definition software for defining the product specifications to be controlled is provided, and software executed in accordance with the product specifications By providing call interface software that changes parts, it is possible to re-use the basic control software regardless of changes in product specifications.

  An embedded controller according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. In this embodiment, an electronic control unit for automobile (hereinafter referred to as ECU) is treated as an embodiment as an example of an embedded controller.

  First, FIG. 1 shows a basic structure of control function software in which the present invention is implemented. Software components 1 and 2 describe the update logic of the control variable. This is a software component variation 30 corresponding to a certain control variable, and is composed of software components 31 and 32 that calculate the same control variable but have different calculation procedures. The call interface 33 for the control variable corresponding to the software component variation 30 selects and executes the software component 31 or 32 corresponding to the device configuration from the software component variation 30 with reference to product definition software 34 described later. The product definition software 34 defines a device configuration of a product to be controlled by the control function software. The basic control software 4 describes the execution order of the software components 1 and 2 and the call interface 33. The process flow 5 of the control basic software 4 indicates that the control function software calls the software components 1 and 2 and the call interface 33 in order after being activated by the platform software.

  The call interface 33 is provided corresponding to the software component variation 30 having a plurality of software components having different calculation procedures. Therefore, for example, even when the software component 31 is changed from the software component 31 to the software component 32 according to the device configuration of the product, the change in the software component variation 30 is performed by the call interface 33. 33 can be called, and the control basic software can be used without being changed. That is, the configuration shown in FIG. 1 has an effect of improving the reusability of application software between control devices having different configurations.

  FIG. 2 shows a vehicle to which the present invention is applied. In this example, the vehicle 6 includes an engine 7, a transmission 8, an accelerator pedal 9, an ECU 10 that controls the engine 7, and an ECU 20 that controls the transmission 8.

  FIG. 3 shows a basic configuration of the vehicle distributed control system. The vehicle distributed control system includes an engine 7 that is a control target device, a transmission 8, a pedal 9 that receives an accelerator operation by a driver, software 11, a memory 12, a processor 13, a data receiving device 14, Data transmitter 15, analog input 16 for A / D-converting input from accelerator pedal, digital input 17 for inputting pulse from crank angle sensor, etc., and voltage for driving actuator etc. The ECU 10 includes an analog output 18 that outputs a signal and a digital output 19 that outputs a pulse to drive an actuator, the ECU 20 that has the same configuration as the ECU 10, and converts the depression angle of the pedal 9 into a voltage value. A sensor 161, a sensor 171 for measuring the crank angle of the engine, An actuator 181 driven by a grayed output, and a actuator 191 which is driven by the pulse output.

  FIG. 4 shows an example of the configuration of the software 11. As shown in FIG. 4, the application software 111 and platform software 112 are included.

  The application software 111 estimates the state of the engine 8 to be controlled based on the sensor input, determines the control target state, and calculates the target value for controlling the actuator output. The torque control function 1111 is control function software. It comprises a fuel control function 1112, a diagnostic function 1113, and product definition software 1114 that defines the equipment configuration of the engine 8.

  The platform software 112 includes a real-time operation system (OS) 1121 and input / output software 1122. The real-time OS activates the control function software of the application software 111 in synchronization with the time period and external input, and provides services such as interrupt prohibition processing to the application software 111. The input / output software 1122 includes the embedded controller 10 itself, that is, the processor 13, the data receiver 14, the data transmitter 15, the analog input 16, the digital input 17, the analog output 18, the digital output 19, the sensors 161, 171, and the actuators 181, 191. The arithmetic processing related to is executed.

  FIG. 5 shows an example of the configuration of torque control function software 1111 which is one of the control function software. In the software parts 11111 and 11112, calculation relating to the target torque and calculation procedure relating to the air amount are described. The software component variation 111130 corresponding to the fuel amount calculates the fuel amount that is the same control variable, but the fuel amount calculation software component 111131 in the multiport injection (MPI) method and the fuel amount calculation software in the in-cylinder direct injection method The component 111132 and the like are configured by software components having different calculation procedures depending on the engine configuration. A call interface 111133 for a control variable (fuel amount) corresponding to the fuel amount calculation software component variation 111130, and the software definition 111131 or 111132 corresponding to the device configuration is selected from the software component variation 111130 with reference to the product definition software 1114 And run. Product definition software 1114, which includes the fuel injection system 11141, the number of cylinders 11142, which are the device configuration of the engine 7 to be controlled by the torque control function software 1111, the destination 11143 that defines engine exhaust regulations, and externally connected devices Information on a certain transmission type 11144 is defined. The torque control basic software 11114 describes the execution order of the software components 11111 and 11112 and the call interface 111133. The processing flow 11115 of the torque control basic software 11114 is that the torque control function software 11114 is started by the real-time OS 1121 periodically or in synchronization with an external input such as an engine rotation angle sensor input interrupt, and then the software components 11111 and 11112. , Call interface 111133 is called in order.

  By adopting the configuration shown in FIG. 5, the selection of software components to be changed corresponding to the device configuration of the target engine in the control function software is separated from the basic control software that defines the execution order of the software components. I can do it. For example, if the fuel injection method, number of cylinders, and cylinder arrangement (series, V type, horizontal) in the target engine have changed, the control basic software can be used simply by changing the software components executed by the calling interface. There is an advantage that can be done.

  FIG. 6 shows the correspondence between the software component variation 11130 and the item 11141 of the product definition software. There are a plurality of types of device configurations defined by the product definition software 1114. Therefore, when the software component variation 11130 is made to correspond to a plurality of types of items, there is a problem that the number of variations of software components that must be prepared increases due to the combination of definition items. Therefore, the software component variation 11130 corresponding to one control variable is made to correspond to one item 11141 defined by the product definition software. The configuration shown in FIG. 6 has an advantage that a small number of soft component variations can be efficiently reused for a large number of products.

  FIG. 7 shows the operation of the call interface 33.

  The control basic software 4 executes the calling interface 33 in step 1 (hereinafter referred to as S1). As a result, processing of the call interface 33 is started. In S2, the corresponding product specification is read, and the product specification item corresponding to the software component variation is specified. In S3, the product definition software 34 is read, and the configuration of the product specification item specified in S2 is referred to in the target control device. In S4, a software component calling procedure to be called for the target control device from the software component variation 30 is generated. In S5, a software component is called. After the processing of the software component is completed, the processing of the call interface 33 is completed in S6, and the execution processing is returned to the control basic software 4.

  FIG. 8 shows an example of an embedded controller to which the present invention is applied. In the example of FIG. 8, since the MPI method is applied as the fuel injection method, only the software component 111131 corresponding to the MPI method is written in the memory 12 by the software component variation 111130.

  With the configuration shown in FIG. 8, it is possible to reduce the amount of memory used even in an embedded control device with severe memory capacity restrictions.

  FIG. 9 shows a C source code as an example of the control function software shown in FIG. The control basic software 101 defines the execution order of the update procedure “ALPHA_Update”, “BETA_Update”, and “GAMMA_Update” of the control variable to be calculated and calls them. A data interface 1021 corresponding to the software component BETA 1022 defines data exchange between the software components. The software component 1022 defines the calculation procedure of the control variable BETA. There are no software component variations for the control variable BETA. The control variable GAMMA has a software component variation corresponding to the number of engine cylinders. The product definition software 104 defines the device configuration of the engine to be controlled. “#Define CylNum Cyl4” indicates that the product specification item CylNum (the number of cylinders) is Cyl4 (four cylinders). The call interface 1031 selects the software component for the engine to be controlled from the software component variations of the control variable GAMMA. The product definition software 104 is read with “#include VP_Profile.h”. In the macro definition of “#define GAMMA_Update ()”, it is defined which product specification item the control variable GAMMA corresponds to. In the macro definition of “#define GAMMA_Update_VP (CylNum)”, the software component variation of the control variable GAMMA is converted into an execution instruction for calling a specific software component based on the product specification read from the product definition software 104. A software component 1033 for four cylinders in a software component variation of the control variable GAMMA is provided, and a data interface 1032 for the software component 1033 is provided.

  In this way, with the configuration shown in FIG. 9, only the control variable update order needs to be defined and executed from the basic control software, and the control variable to be executed has software component variations depending on the configuration of the control target device. There is no need to be aware of whether or not control variables can be updated using a common procedure. In addition, since the function to select the software component corresponding to the control target from the software component variation has been localized in the calling interface, there is no need to change the basic control software even if the device configuration of the control target is changed. There is an advantage that it can be reused.

  The present invention can be applied to a control device configured to control a device that includes a plurality of software components and has a mechanical configuration.

It is a figure which shows the structural example of the embedded control apparatus by one embodiment of this invention. It is a figure which shows the built-in control apparatus for motor vehicles of an Example. It is a schematic diagram of the built-in control apparatus of an Example. It is a figure which shows the software structure of an embedded control apparatus. It is a figure which shows the structure of control function software and product definition software. It is a figure which shows the product series change log | history digitized. It is a figure which shows a response | compatibility with a software component variation and the product specification item of product definition software. It is a figure which shows the mounting form of an embedded control apparatus. It is a figure which shows the description in C language of control function software and product definition software.

Explanation of symbols

1, 2, 31, 32 Software component 4 Basic control software 5 Process flow 30 Software component variation 33 Call interface 34 Product definition software

Claims (9)

A signal input unit that takes in an input signal from the outside and converts it into data;
A processor for processing the data-converted input signal and calculating control data;
A signal output unit that outputs the control data as a control signal to an externally connected device;
In an embedded controller comprising a memory for storing embedded software for causing the processor to execute the calculation,
The embedded software is
Application software composed of multiple control function software and product definition software that defines the product specifications to be controlled,
Basic software for controlling the activation of the control function software, reading the input signal and outputting the control signal in response to a request from the control function software,
The control function software is
A plurality of software components, control basic software for managing the execution order of the software components, and call interface software corresponding to each execution call of at least one of the software components by the control basic software,
The software component having the call interface is:
Built-in controller characterized by having multiple software component variations. The embedded controller according to claim 1,
The embedded controller is characterized in that the software component variation is provided corresponding to the product specifications to be controlled.   3. The embedded controller according to claim 1, wherein the call interface software calls an appropriate software component from the software component variation based on the product specification defined in the product definition software. The embedded controller according to any one of claims 1 to 3,
The startup procedure of the call interface is the same as the startup procedure of the software component, and after executing conversion to the startup procedure of the software component variation based on the product specification, the execution call of the corresponding software component is performed. Embedded controller characterized by   5. The embedded controller according to claim 1, wherein the call interface refers to only one item of the product specification for each call interface. The embedded controller according to any one of claims 1 to 5,
The product specification includes at least one of a mechanical configuration to be controlled, a product destination, and an externally connected device configuration. The embedded controller according to any one of claims 1 to 6,
The built-in controller, wherein the product specification corresponds to a design element that differs among products in the product line to which the control object belongs.   8. The embedded controller according to claim 1, wherein the software component variation includes only software components that are executed and called by the call interface based on the product specifications to be controlled. . The embedded controller according to any one of claims 1 to 8,
The control target is an internal combustion engine for automobiles, and the product specifications include at least the number of cylinders, cylinder arrangement, throttle type, fuel injection method, valve drive mechanism, presence or absence of a supercharger, transmission type, piston shape, intake port Built-in controller characterized by including any one of number, exhaust port number, internal combustion engine cooling system, fuel type, number of strokes, shipping country, and corresponding exhaust regulations.

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