Enhanced system failure diagnosis

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11100732-B2
Application number	US-201916418587-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	May 21, 2019
Priority date	May 21, 2019
Publication date	Aug 24, 2021
Grant date	Aug 24, 2021

Abstract

A method of diagnosing a root cause for an exhibited vehicle failure, comprises initiating a vehicle health management (VHM) algorithm, repeatedly monitoring, at a specified time interval, the state of health (SOH) for at least one vehicle component, wherein the SOH for the at least one vehicle component is one of Green (normal operation), Yellow, and Red, calculating a number of consecutive Green SOH results for the at least one vehicle component, and providing an indication of likelihood that the at least one vehicle component is not a root cause of the exhibited vehicle failure based on the number of consecutive Green SOH results for the at least one vehicle component.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method of diagnosing a root cause for an exhibited vehicle failure, comprising:
initiating a vehicle health management (VHM) algorithm;
repeatedly monitoring, at a specified time interval, the state of health (SOH) for at least one vehicle component, wherein the SOH for the at least one vehicle component is categorized as one of Green, Yellow, and Red;
calculating a number of consecutive Green SOH results for the at least one vehicle component; and
providing an indication of likelihood that the at least one vehicle component is not the root cause of the exhibited vehicle failure based on the number of consecutive Green SOH results for the at least one vehicle component.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein, the providing the indication of likelihood that the at least one vehicle component is not the root cause of the vehicle failure based on the number of consecutive Green SOH results for the at least one vehicle component further includes: providing no indication of the likelihood that the at least one vehicle component is not a root cause of the exhibited vehicle failure when the number of consecutive Green SOH results for the at least one vehicle component is less than a first pre-determined threshold.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein, the providing the indication of likelihood that the at least one vehicle component is not the root cause of the vehicle failure based on the number of consecutive Green SOH results for the at least one vehicle component further includes: providing an indication that the at least one vehicle component is unlikely to be the root cause of the exhibited vehicle failure when the number of consecutive Green SOH results for the at least one vehicle component is greater than or equal to the first pre-determined threshold.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein, the providing the indication of likelihood that the at least one vehicle component is not the root cause of the vehicle failure based on the number of consecutive Green SOH results for the at least one vehicle component further includes: providing an indication that the at least one vehicle component is unlikely, with a high level of confidence, to be the root cause of the exhibited vehicle failure when the number of consecutive Green SOH results for the at least one vehicle component is greater than or equal to a second pre-determined threshold, wherein the second pre-determined threshold is greater than the first pre-determined threshold.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the initiating the[[a]] vehicle health management (VHM) algorithm further includes:
initiating the VHM algorithm whenever the engine of the vehicle is started.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein the initiating the VHM algorithm whenever the engine of the vehicle is started further includes: running the VHM algorithm whenever the engine of the vehicle is running.

7. The method of claim 5 , further including: resetting the number of consecutive Green SOH results to zero when the engine of the vehicle has not been started for longer than a pre-determined time interval.

8. The method of claim 5 , further including: resetting the number of consecutive Green SOH results to zero when the vehicle has not moved between consecutive engine starts.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the initiating the VHM algorithm further includes: initiating communication between a controller and at least one sensor within the vehicle, wherein the controller is adapted to run the VHM algorithm, and the at least one sensor is adapted to monitor SOH conditions for the at least one vehicle component.

10. The method of claim 9 , wherein the controller is located remotely from the vehicle, and the initiating communication between the controller and the at least one sensor within the vehicle includes: initiating communication between the controller and the at least one sensor within the vehicle via a wireless network.

11. A method of diagnosing a root cause for an exhibited system error, comprising:
repeatedly monitoring, at a specified time interval, the state of health (SOH) for at least one sub-system, wherein the SOH for the at least one sub-system is categorized as one of Green, Yellow, and Red;
calculating a number of consecutive Green SOH results for the at least one sub-system; and
providing an indication of likelihood that the at least one sub-system is not a root cause of the exhibited system error based on the number of consecutive Green SOH results for the at least one sub-system.

12. The method of claim 11 , wherein, the providing the indication of likelihood that the at least one sub-system is not the root cause of the system failure based on the number of consecutive Green SOH results for the at least one sub-system further includes: providing no indication of the likelihood that the at least one sub-system is not the root cause of the exhibited system error when the number of consecutive Green SOH results for the at least one sub-system is less than ten.

13. The method of claim 12 , wherein, the providing the indication of likelihood that the at least one sub-system is not the root cause of the system error based on the number of consecutive Green SOH results for the at least one sub-system further includes: providing an indication that the at least one sub-system is unlikely to be the root cause of the exhibited system error when the number of consecutive Green SOH results for the at least one sub-system is greater than or equal to ten.

14. The method of claim 13 , wherein, the providing the indication of likelihood that the at least one sub-system is not the root cause of the system error based on the number of consecutive Green SOH results for the at least one sub-system further includes: providing an indication that the at least one sub-system is unlikely, with a high level of confidence, to be the root cause of the exhibited system error when the number of consecutive Green SOH results for the at least one sub-system is greater than or equal to twenty.

15. The method of claim 11 , wherein the repeatedly monitoring, at the specified time interval, the state of health (SOH) for the at least one sub-system further includes: repeatedly monitoring, at the specified time interval, the state of health (SOH) for the at least one sub-system whenever the system is running.

16. The method of claim 15 , further including: resetting the number of consecutive Green SOH results to zero when the system has not been running for longer than a pre-determined time interval.

17. A method of diagnosing a root cause for an exhibited vehicle failure, comprising:
initiating a vehicle health management (VHM) algorithm whenever anthe engine of the vehicle is started;
running the VHM algorithm whenever the engine of the vehicle is running;
repeatedly monitoring, at a specified time interval, the state of health (SOH) for at least one vehicle component, wherein the SOH for the at least one vehicle component is categorized as one of Green, Yellow, and Red;
calculating a number of consecutive Green SOH results for the at least one vehicle component;
resetting the number of consecutive Green SOH results to zero when the engine of the vehicle has not been started for longer than a pre-determined time interval and when the vehicle has not moved between consecutive engine starts; and
providing an indication of likelihood that the at least one vehicle component is not a root cause of the exhibited vehicle failure based on the number of consecutive Green SOH results for the at least one vehicle component.

18. The method of claim

Assignees

• Gm Global Tech Operations Llc

Inventors

• Holland Steven W
• Sadekar Varsha K
• Sanchez Joshua J

Classifications

• B60W50/0205

  Diagnosing or detecting failures; Failure detection models · CPC title

• G05B23/0278

  Qualitative, e.g. if-then rules; Fuzzy logic; Lookup tables; Symptomatic search; FMEA · CPC title

• G07C5/0808 Primary

  Diagnosing performance data (testing of vehicles G01M17/00; testing of electrical installation on vehicles G01R31/005) · CPC title