Vehicle communications

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10547502-B2
Application number	US-201715674217-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 10, 2017
Priority date	Aug 10, 2017
Publication date	Jan 28, 2020
Grant date	Jan 28, 2020

Abstract

A vehicle system includes a telematics control unit (TCU) coupled to a plurality of vehicle controllers. The TCU is configured to periodically record in a log wireless activity data relating to an authentication, attachment, signaling, detachment, and handover procedure of the TCU to provide one or more remote vehicle services. The TCU is further configured to, responsive to detecting a cellular malfunction from the logged data, wirelessly transmit at least a portion of the log that corresponds to the cellular malfunction offboard the vehicle for a remote server configured to diagnose operation of the TCU.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A vehicle comprising,
a telematics control unit (TCU) configured to,
periodically record in a log wireless activity data relating to an authentication, attachment, signaling, detachment, and handover procedure of the TCU to provide one or more remote vehicle services, and
responsive to detecting a cellular malfunction from the logged data, wirelessly transmit at least a portion of the log that corresponds to the cellular malfunction offboard the vehicle for a remote diagnostic server; wherein

the periodically recorded wireless activity data includes first data that relates to an authentication, attachment, signaling, detachment, or handover activity of the TCU corresponding to the cellular malfunction, and second data that relates to an authentication, attachment, signaling, detachment, or handover activity of the TCU that is not associated with the cellular malfunction,
the TCU is further configured to record the wireless activity data in the log transmitted offboard the vehicle responsive to detecting the cellular malfunction as the wireless activity data is periodically collected by the TCU, and
the log is a first log of the TCU, and the TCU is further configured to, responsive to a component malfunction of the TCU,
record data indicative of the component malfunction in a second log of the TCU, and
wirelessly transmit at least a portion of the first log and the second log offboard the vehicle for the remote diagnostic server.

2. The vehicle of claim 1 , wherein the transmitted at least a portion of the log further includes data relating to operation of the TCU collected by the TCU after the cellular malfunction is detected.

3. The vehicle of claim 1 , wherein the transmitted log includes the first data and not the second data, and the TCU is further configured to, responsive to detecting the cellular malfunction, discard the second data without transmitting the second data offboard the vehicle.

4. The vehicle of claim 1 , wherein the component malfunction comprises a diagnostic trouble code, a firmware over-the-air update failure, an input-output fault, a global positioning fault, a message broker connection issue, or a memory read/write failure.

5. The vehicle of claim 1 , wherein the TCU is further configured to, responsive to the component malfunction,
identify data in the first log that is associated with a timestamp within a predefined time period immediately preceding the component malfunction, and
wirelessly transmit the identified data offboard the vehicle for the remote diagnostic server.

6. The vehicle of claim 5 , wherein the TCU is further configured to, responsive to the component malfunction, discard data in the first log that is not associated with a timestamp within the predefined time period immediately prior to the component malfunction, wherein the discarded data is not transmitted offboard the vehicle for the remote diagnostic server.

7. The vehicle of claim 1 , wherein the TCU is further configured to,
responsive to a log transmission failure, insert the at least a portion of the log in a cache for failed transmission log data, and
responsive to a data size of the failed transmission log data in the cache exceeding a threshold, wirelessly retry transmitting the at least a portion of the log offboard the vehicle for the remote diagnostic server.

8. The vehicle of claim 1 , wherein the cellular malfunction is slow cellular network connectivity, and the TCU is further configured to,
responsive to receiving a fix corresponding to the log from the remote diagnostic server that defines instructions for the TCU to utilize a different cellular network, connect to the different cellular network.

9. The vehicle of claim 1 , wherein the TCU is configured to wirelessly transmit the at least a portion of the log by being configured to wirelessly transmit the log and an associated topic offboard the vehicle to a data broker, and responsive to receiving the log, the data broker is configured to, responsive to identifying the remote diagnostic server as a subscriber to the associated topic, transmit the log to the remote diagnostic server.

10. A method comprising,
by a telematics control unit (TCU) of a vehicle,
periodically recording in a log wireless activity data relating to an authentication, attachment, signaling, detachment, and handover procedure of the TCU to provide one or more remote vehicle services,
responsive to detecting a cellular malfunction from the log, wirelessly transmitting at least a portion of the log that corresponds to the cellular malfunction offboard the vehicle for a remote diagnostic server; wherein
the log is a first log of the TCU, and further comprising responsive to a component malfunction of the TCU,
logging data indicative of the component malfunction in a second log, and
wirelessly transmitting at least a portion of the first log and the second log offboard the vehicle for the remote diagnostic server.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the component malfunction includes a diagnostic trouble code, a firmware over-the-air update failure, an input-output fault, a global positioning fault, a message broker connection issues, or a memory read/write failure.

12. The method of claim 10 , wherein the cellular malfunction is slow cellular network connectivity, and further comprising,
responsive to receiving a fix corresponding to the log from the remote diagnostic server that defines instructions for the TCU to utilize a different cellular network, connecting to the different cellular network.

13. The method of claim 10 , wherein transmitting the at least a portion of the log offboard the vehicle comprises transmitting the log and an associated topic offboard the vehicle to a data broker, wherein responsive to receiving the log, the data broker is configured to, responsive to identifying the remote diagnostic server as a subscriber to the topic, transmit the log to the remote diagnostic server.

14. The method of claim 13 , further comprising,
responsive to receiving an acknowledgement from the data broker before the log is received by the remote diagnostic server, deleting contents of the log from the TCU.

15. The method of claim 10 , further comprising,
responsive to a transmission failure, inserting the at least a portion of the log in a cache for failed transmission log data, and
responsive to a data size of the failed transmission log data in the cache exceeding a threshold, wirelessly retry transmitting the at least a portion of the log offboard the vehicle for the remote diagnostic server.

Assignees

• Ford Global Tech Llc

Inventors

• Makkiya Aziz
• Zakaria Tony
• Vijayan Rajesh Balaji
• MIRAMONTI Allan
• Vangelov John Naum
• Pandya Ritesh

Classifications

• H04L41/069 Primary

  using logs of notifications; Post-processing of notifications · CPC title

• G07C5/085

  using electronic data carriers · CPC title

• H04W84/042

  Public Land Mobile systems, e.g. cellular systems · CPC title

• H04L67/12

  specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks · CPC title

• G05B23/0213 Primary

  Modular or universal configuration of the monitoring system, e.g. monitoring system having modules that may be combined to build monitoring program; monitoring system that can be applied to legacy systems; adaptable monitoring system; using different communication protocols · CPC title