WO2024052988A1

WO2024052988A1 - Electronic control unit and probe data transmission control method

Info

Publication number: WO2024052988A1
Application number: PCT/JP2022/033403
Authority: WO
Inventors: 孝一照井
Original assignee: 日立Astemo株式会社
Priority date: 2022-09-06
Filing date: 2022-09-06
Publication date: 2024-03-14

Abstract

This electronic control unit, which stores and provides experience information including probe data and map data to a computer with which the electronic control unit communicates, has a memory for storing probe data, acquires and records the probe data in the memory at each recording cycle, and transmits the probe data recorded in the memory to the computer. A base recording cycle is set as the initial value of said recording cycle. If the communication with the computer is interrupted, the electronic control unit updates the recording cycle to a cycle longer than the base recording cycle.

Description

Electronic control unit and probe data transmission control method

The present invention relates to an electronic control unit that stores and transmits probe data.

Various services have been devised that utilize probe data collected from vehicles, including vehicle speed, steering, temperature, etc. For example, there are services that realize safe and comfortable vehicle driving by providing road information generated using probe data.

The vehicle and the device collecting data communicate via the network. If communication is lost, the vehicle will continue to accumulate probe data because it cannot send it to the device. If communication continues to be disrupted, the vehicle's memory will run out of memory, making it impossible to store probe data. This causes probe data to be sent to the device to be lost.

JP2021-71753A

A technology is needed to prevent probe data from being lost when communication between the vehicle and the device is interrupted. 2. Description of the Related Art A technique described in Patent Document 1 is known as a technique for dealing with a communication interruption between a vehicle and a device that communicates with the vehicle.

Patent Document 1 states, ``A management system is a management system in which an automated driving support center manages the vehicle status of an automated driving vehicle by periodically communicating with the automated driving vehicle, and is installed in the automated driving vehicle. Indicates the status of communication between the automated driving support center and the automated driving vehicle at each location where the automated driving vehicle can travel within the area managed by the management system, in the event that communication with the automated driving support center is interrupted. A vehicle-side device 20 equipped with a vehicle-side determination unit 21C that determines whether or not to continue automatic driving based on communication status information, which is information, and a vehicle-side device 20 that is provided in the automatic driving support center and that communicates with the automatic driving vehicle. and a center-side device 10 including a center-side determination unit 11D that determines whether to contact a supporter who provides support for the self-driving vehicle based on communication status information in the event of a communication interruption. Are listed.

The technology described in Patent Document 1 is a technology that determines whether automatic driving can be continued, and cannot prevent probe data from being lost.

An object of the present invention is to provide a technology that prevents probe data containing important information from being lost when communication between a vehicle and a device that collects probe data is interrupted.

A typical example of the invention disclosed in this application is as follows. That is, an electronic control unit that communicates with a computer that stores and provides experience information including probe data transmitted from a vehicle and map data of a route traveled by the vehicle, the first electronic control unit that stores the probe data; has a memory, acquires the probe data for each recording cycle, records it in the first memory, transmits the probe data recorded in the first memory to the computer, and sets an initial value of the recording cycle. A base recording cycle is set as , and the electronic control unit is configured to change the recording cycle when a breakdown in communication with the computer occurs or when a breakdown in communication with the computer is predicted to occur. is updated to a period longer than the base recording period.

According to the present invention, even if communication between the vehicle and the device is interrupted, it is possible to prevent probe data containing important information from being lost. Problems, configurations, and effects other than those described above will be made clear by the description of the following examples.

1 is a block diagram showing an example of the configuration of a system according to a first embodiment; FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating an example of processing executed by the information transmitting and receiving device according to the first embodiment.

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. However, the present invention should not be construed as being limited to the contents described in the Examples shown below. Those skilled in the art will readily understand that the specific configuration can be changed without departing from the spirit or spirit of the present invention.

In the configuration of the invention described below, the same or similar configurations or functions are given the same reference numerals, and duplicate explanations will be omitted.

In this specification, etc., expressions such as "first," "second," and "third" are used to identify constituent elements, and do not necessarily limit the number or order.

The position, size, shape, range, etc. of each component shown in the drawings etc. may not represent the actual position, size, shape, range, etc. in order to facilitate understanding of the invention. Therefore, the present invention is not limited to the position, size, shape, range, etc. disclosed in the drawings and the like.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an example of the configuration of a system according to the first embodiment.

The system is composed of a vehicle 10 and an experience information management server 11. The vehicle 10 and the experience information management server 11 are connected to each other via a network.

The experience information management server 11 accumulates experience information including probe data and map data of the route traveled by the vehicle, and also provides it to the vehicle 10. The vehicle 10 to which experience information is provided is not limited to the vehicle that transmitted the probe data included in the experience information.

The probe data includes, for example, sensor measurement results, vehicle position, speed, acceleration, data regarding steering operation, communication status, temperature, weather, etc. The invention is not limited to the values contained in the probe data. Furthermore, the data format of the probe data is not limited.

The vehicle 10 includes an antenna 101, an antenna 102, a sensor 103, a sensor recognition recognition device 104, a position information receiving device 105, a map information distribution device 106, a determination device 107, a vehicle control device 108, a communication device 109, and an information transmitting/receiving device 110. have Note that the engine, steering device, etc. are omitted.

The information transmitting/receiving device 110 is connected to the sensor 103, the sensor recognition recognition device 104, the map information distribution device 106, the determination device 107, the vehicle control device 108, and the communication device 109.

The sensor recognition recognition device 104, the location information receiving device 105, the map information distribution device 106, the determination device 107, the vehicle control device 108, and the information transmitting/receiving device 110 are, for example, electronic control units including a CPU, memory, input/output devices, etc. (ECU).

The sensor 103 is a sensor for recognizing the state around the vehicle 10, and is, for example, a camera, a radar, or the like. Vehicle 10 has a plurality of sensors 103 of different types. The vehicle 10 in FIG. 1 has (n+1) sensors 103. The sensor 103 transmits the measurement result to the sensor recognition recognition device 104 via the information transmitting/receiving device 110.

The sensor recognition recognition device 104 recognizes objects (people, bicycles, vehicles, etc.) that exist around the vehicle 10 based on the measurement results sent from the sensor 103, and also recognizes the distance between the object and the vehicle 10. , direction, speed, etc. (based on sensors).

The location information receiving device 105 acquires location information such as GPS via the antenna 101. The map information distribution device 106 holds map information.

The determination device 107 generates control information for controlling the vehicle 10 based on the own vehicle position, information output from the sensor recognition recognition device 104, experience information, etc., and transmits it to the vehicle control device 108.

The vehicle control device 108 controls the steering, accelerator, brake, etc. of the vehicle 10 based on the control information.

The communication device 109 communicates with the experience information management server 11 via the antenna 102.

The information transmitting/receiving device 110 periodically accumulates probe data and transmits it to the experience information management server 11 via the communication device 109. Further, the information transmitting/receiving device 110 receives experience information from the experience information management server 11 via the communication device 109 and holds it.

The information transmitting/receiving device 110 includes a control section 150, a routing section 151, a data collection section 152, an experience information storage section 153, a probe data storage section 154, a recording cycle updating section 155, a vehicle position determination section 156, a communication interruption detection section 157, and It has an event detection section 158.

The control unit 150 controls the entire information transmitting and receiving device 110.

The routing unit 151 communicates with the sensor 103, the sensor recognition recognition device 104, the map information distribution device 106, the determination device 107, the vehicle control device 108, and the communication device 109.

The data collection unit 152 collects data regarding the measurement result of the sensor 103, the position of the vehicle 10, the control state of the vehicle 10, the communication state, etc. according to the recording cycle, and stores the probe data including the collected data in the probe data storage unit. 154. The probe data storage unit 154 transmits the stored probe data to the experience information management server 11 according to the transmission cycle. The recording cycle and the transmission cycle may be the same or different.

The experience information storage unit 153 records experience information received from the experience information management server 11. The following variations can be considered as methods for acquiring experience information. Note that the present invention is not limited to the method of acquiring experience information.

(Variation 1) When the travel route is known in advance, the information transmitting/receiving device 110 acquires all experience information related to the travel route from the experience information management server 11 before the vehicle 10 starts moving.

(Variation 2) The information transmitting/receiving device 110 acquires experience information related to a predetermined section of the travel route from the experience information management server 11 at every predetermined distance or every predetermined period.

The recording cycle updating unit 155 updates the recording cycle. In the following description, the initial recording cycle will be referred to as a base recording cycle.

The vehicle position determination unit 156 determines the position of the vehicle 10 on the map based on the map information and position information.

The communication interruption detection unit 157 monitors the state of communication with the experience information management server 11, detects communication interruption, or predicts communication interruption. Prediction of communication disruption is performed, for example, based on empirical information in which data regarding communication disruption is recorded.

The event detection unit 158 detects an event that triggers an update of the recording cycle. For example, the event detection unit 158 detects a sudden change in speed or steering angle as an event. Furthermore, the event detection unit 158 detects blinking of the turn signal as an event.

Regarding the functional units included in the information transmitting/receiving device 110, multiple functional units may be combined into one functional unit, or one functional unit may be divided into multiple functional units.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating an example of processing executed by the information transmitting/receiving device 110 of the first embodiment.

When the information transmitting/receiving device 110 detects a communication interruption or predicts a communication interruption, the information transmitting/receiving device 110 executes the process described below.

The information transmitting/receiving device 110 acquires the position information of the vehicle 10 before communication is interrupted (step S101), and specifies the position of the vehicle 10 on the map by comparing it with map information (step S102).

The information transmitting/receiving device 110 refers to the experience information related to the position of the vehicle 10 and determines whether the experience information includes data related to communication interruption (step S103). The data regarding the communication interruption includes, for example, data on a route (for example, a tunnel) where the communication interruption occurs, data on a time period where the communication interruption occurs, and the like.

If the experience information does not include data regarding communication interruption, the information transmitting/receiving device 110 updates the recording cycle to the maximum value (step S104), and then proceeds to step S106. It is assumed that the maximum value of the recording cycle is set in advance in the information transmitting/receiving device 110.

If the experience information includes data regarding communication interruption, the information transmitting/receiving device 110 updates the recording cycle using the experience information (step S105), and then proceeds to step S106. For example, the following update method can be considered.

(Update method 1) When the experience information includes data on a time period in which a communication interruption occurs, the information transmitting/receiving device 110 calculates the interruption duration based on the time period and the current time. The information transmitting/receiving device 110 calculates the predicted data amount to be recorded in the probe data storage unit 154 based on the interruption duration, the base recording cycle, and the data size of the probe data. It is assumed that the data size of the probe data is set in advance. Note that the data size of the probe data may be calculated based on the results of probe data collection so far. If the predicted data amount is larger than the free space of the probe data storage unit 154, the information transmitting/receiving device 110 sets a cycle longer than the base recording cycle as a new recording cycle. The range of change in the recording cycle can be calculated, for example, based on the difference between the predicted data amount and the free space.

(Update method 2) When the experience information includes data on a route where communication disruption occurs, the information transmitting/receiving device 110 determines the duration of the disruption based on the route, the position and speed of the vehicle 10, and the current time. calculate. The information transmitting/receiving device 110 calculates the predicted amount of data to be recorded in the probe data storage unit 154 based on the interruption duration, the current recording cycle, and the data size of the probe data.

In either update method, a cycle longer than the base recording cycle is set as the new recording cycle. This can prevent the probe data storage section 154 from running out of free space. With this control, although the probe data acquisition interval becomes irregular, it is possible to prevent prolongation of the period during which probe data cannot be acquired. That is, it is possible to prevent loss of probe data containing important information.

Note that the period may be calculated taking into consideration the transmission period of probe data.

In step S106, the information transmitting and receiving device 110 monitors the state of the vehicle 10 and determines whether an event has occurred (step S106).

If no event has occurred, the information transmitting/receiving device 110 proceeds to step S110.

If an event occurs, the information transmitting/receiving device 110 updates the recording cycle (step S107).

For example, a cycle longer than the base recording cycle and shorter than the current recording cycle is set as the new recording cycle. It is assumed that the recording cycle is updated based on a preset rule.

The information transmitting/receiving device 110 monitors the state of the vehicle 10 and determines whether the event has ended (step S108). For example, if the change in steering or speed becomes small, the information transmitting/receiving device 110 determines that the event has ended.

If the event has not ended, the information transmitting/receiving device 110 proceeds to step S110.

If the event has ended, the information transmitting/receiving device 110 updates the recording cycle to the original value (step S109), and then proceeds to step S110. Here, the original value indicates the recording cycle set in step S105.

By updating the recording cycle when an event occurs, probe data containing important information can be acquired preferentially.

In step S110, the information transmitting/receiving device 110 determines whether the communication interruption has been resolved (step S110).

If the communication interruption has not been resolved, the information transmitting/receiving device 110 returns to step S106.

If the communication interruption is resolved, the information transmitting/receiving device 110 updates the recording cycle to the base recording cycle (step S111), and then ends the process.

Note that step S104 may be changed to the following process. The information transmitting/receiving device 110 periodically checks the free space of the probe data storage section 154 and updates the recording cycle based on the free space. For example, the information transmitting/receiving device 110 calculates the time when the probe data storage section 154 runs out of free space, based on the free space of the probe data storage section 154 and the current recording cycle. The information transmitting/receiving device 110 calculates the grace time by adding a predetermined time to the time. The information transmitting/receiving device 110 calculates the cycle at which free space runs out at the grace time and sets it as a new recording cycle.

Note that if there is no free space in the probe data storage section 154, the information transmitting/receiving device 110 may secure free space in the probe data storage section 154 by deleting the probe data in the order of the oldest probe data.

Note that the present invention is not limited to the embodiments described above, and includes various modifications. Further, for example, the configurations of the embodiments described above are explained in detail in order to explain the present invention in an easy-to-understand manner, and the present invention is not necessarily limited to having all the configurations described. Further, a part of the configuration of each embodiment can be added to, deleted from, or replaced with other configurations.

Further, each of the above-mentioned configurations, functions, processing units, processing means, etc. may be partially or entirely realized by hardware, for example, by designing an integrated circuit. Further, the present invention can also be realized by software program codes that realize the functions of the embodiments. In this case, a storage medium on which a program code is recorded is provided to a computer, and a processor included in the computer reads the program code stored on the storage medium. In this case, the program code itself read from the storage medium realizes the functions of the embodiments described above, and the program code itself and the storage medium storing it constitute the present invention. Examples of storage media for supplying such program codes include flexible disks, CD-ROMs, DVD-ROMs, hard disks, SSDs (Solid State Drives), optical disks, magneto-optical disks, CD-Rs, magnetic tapes, A non-volatile memory card, ROM, etc. are used.

Furthermore, the program code that implements the functions described in this embodiment can be implemented in a wide range of program or script languages, such as assembler, C/C++, Perl, Shell, PHP, Python, and Java.

Furthermore, by distributing the software program code that realizes the functions of the embodiment via a network, it can be stored in a storage means such as a computer's hard disk or memory, or a storage medium such as a CD-RW or CD-R. Alternatively, a processor included in the computer may read and execute the program code stored in the storage means or the storage medium.

In the above embodiments, the control lines and information lines are those considered necessary for explanation, and not all control lines and information lines are necessarily shown in the product. All configurations may be interconnected.

Claims

An electronic control unit that communicates with a computer that accumulates and provides experience information including probe data transmitted from a vehicle and map data of a route traveled by the vehicle,
a first memory that stores the probe data;
acquiring the probe data and recording it in the first memory for each recording cycle;
transmitting the probe data recorded in the first memory to the computer;
A base recording cycle is set as an initial value of the recording cycle,
The electronic control unit sets the recording cycle to a cycle longer than the base recording cycle when a breakdown in communication with the computer occurs or when a breakdown in communication with the computer is predicted to occur. An electronic control unit that is characterized by being updated to.
The electronic control unit according to claim 1,
comprising a second memory for storing the experience information transmitted from the computer;
The electronic control unit includes:
When the second memory stores the experience information including data regarding the time period in which the communication interruption occurred, the interruption duration time, which is the time during which the communication interruption continues, is calculated based on the time period and the current time. ,
An electronic control unit that calculates a new cycle based on the interruption duration, the base recording cycle, and the free capacity of the first memory.
The electronic control unit according to claim 1,
comprising a second memory for storing the experience information transmitted from the computer;
The electronic control unit includes:
When the second memory stores the experience information including data regarding the route where the communication disruption occurred, calculating a disruption duration time that is the time during which the communications disruption continues based on the route and the position of the vehicle;
An electronic control unit that calculates a new cycle based on the interruption duration, the base recording cycle, and the free capacity of the first memory.
The electronic control unit according to claim 1,
An electronic control unit characterized in that a new cycle is calculated based on the free space of the first memory.
The electronic control unit according to claim 1,
After the recording cycle is updated, monitor the occurrence of an event that triggers the update of the recording cycle,
The electronic control unit is characterized in that, when the occurrence of the event is detected, the recording cycle is updated to a cycle whose length is longer than the base recording cycle and shorter than the current cycle.
A probe data transmission control method executed by an electronic control unit, the method comprising:
The electronic control unit includes:
It is communicably connected to a computer that accumulates and provides experience information including probe data and map data of the route traveled by the vehicle.
a first memory that stores the probe data;
The probe data transmission control method includes:
a first step in which the electronic control unit acquires the probe data and records it in the first memory in each recording cycle;
a second step in which the electronic control unit transmits the probe data recorded in the first memory to the computer;
A base recording cycle is set as an initial value of the recording cycle,
The probe data transmission control method is such that the electronic control unit transmits the data to the record when a communication interruption with the computer occurs or when an interruption of communication with the computer is predicted to occur. A method for controlling transmission of probe data, comprising a third step of updating a cycle to a cycle longer than the base recording cycle.
7. The probe data transmission control method according to claim 6,
The electronic control unit has a second memory that stores the experience information transmitted from the computer,
The third step is
When the second memory stores the experience information including data regarding the time period in which the communication interruption occurred, the electronic control unit determines the time period during which the communication interruption continues based on the time period and the current time. calculating an interruption duration;
The electronic control unit calculates a new cycle based on the interruption duration, the base recording cycle, and the free space of the first memory. .
7. The probe data transmission control method according to claim 6,
The electronic control unit has a second memory that stores the experience information transmitted from the computer,
The third step is
When the second memory stores the experience information including data regarding the route where the communication interruption occurred, the electronic control unit determines the duration of the communication interruption based on the route and the position of the vehicle. a step of calculating the duration;
The electronic control unit calculates a new cycle based on the interruption duration, the base recording cycle, and the free space of the first memory. .
7. The probe data transmission control method according to claim 6,
The probe data transmission control method is characterized in that the third step includes a step in which the electronic control unit calculates a new cycle based on the free space of the first memory.
7. The probe data transmission control method according to claim 6,
The electronic control unit monitors the occurrence of an event that triggers an update of the recording cycle after the recording cycle is updated;
When the occurrence of the event is detected, the electronic control unit updates the recording cycle to a cycle whose length is longer than the base recording cycle and shorter than the current cycle. How to control the transmission of probe data.