Vehicle diagnosing apparatus, vehicle diagnosing system, and diagnosing method

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9721399-B2
Application number	US-36888509-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 10, 2009
Priority date	Feb 22, 2008
Publication date	Aug 1, 2017
Grant date	Aug 1, 2017

Abstract

A vehicle diagnosing apparatus, a vehicle diagnosing system, and a diagnosing method enable the determination of completion of a repair or part replacement on a vehicle while adapting to changes in environment and overcoming temporal or spatial restrictions. The vehicle diagnosing apparatus reads diagnostic information from an on-board diagnosing unit on the vehicle that detects an abnormality in an on-board device. A result of a maintenance work performed on the on-board device is finalized by a maintenance result finalizing unit. A determination unit determines the appropriateness of the finalized maintenance work result with reference to determination information stored in a database that is continuously updated. The result of the determination is indicated by a notifying unit. Analogy is used to obtain the diagnostic information when the on-board device requires a long time or a certain condition to provide accurate diagnostic information.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A vehicle diagnosing apparatus including a computer-readable storage medium with an executable program stored thereon for detecting an abnormality in a first vehicle, the apparatus comprising:
a maintenance result finalizing unit configured to read diagnostic information from the first vehicle after a maintenance work is performed on an individual part of the first vehicle, and configured to finalize a result of the maintenance work based on the diagnostic information of the first vehicle after the maintenance work of the individual part;
a storage unit configured to store normal value information for determining an appropriateness of the result of the maintenance work finalized by the maintenance result finalizing unit, wherein the normal value information is based on diagnostic information collected from a plurality of vehicles other than the first vehicle;
a determination unit configured to automatically determine the appropriateness of the finalized result of the maintenance work with reference to the normal value information in the storage unit, by using an iterative process where the individual part or correlating parts are repeatedly checked to assure completeness of a finalized repair to the individual part; and
a notifying unit configured to provide a notification of a result of the determination made by the determination unit and
a network interface device configured to transmit abnormality elimination information that indicates the abnormality has been eliminated and that is generated from information of the individual part together with vehicle identification information of the first vehicle to a server from which the normal value information was received, wherein the abnormality elimination information includes information that a diagnosed part indicated by a diagnosis code of an abnormality diagnosis information received from the first vehicle before the maintenance work is performed is different from a diagnosed part that is replaced with a repair part,
wherein the diagnostic information, which the determination unit uses with reference to the normal value information to determine the appropriateness of the finalized result of the maintenance work for the individual part, includes diagnostic information from a plurality of the correlating parts that exhibit diagnostic information that correlates with normal-state diagnostic information that the individual part would exhibit during use of the vehicle, and
wherein the diagnostic information indicates a location and extent of a failure,
the individual part is associated with temporal or spatial restrictions in order to determine the appropriateness of the finalized result of the maintenance work for the individual part, and
wherein pattern recognition is used to determine whether the diagnostic information is normal or abnormal,
wherein the maintenance result finalizing unit saves information about the individual part in the storage unit when an error amount between the normal value information and the diagnostic information exceeds a predetermined threshold and a probability of an abnormity is determined based on the error amount,
wherein a set of the diagnostic information for a plurality of the diagnosed parts that correlate with the individual part is gathered into normal and abnormal groups, and the pattern recognition is used to determine whether the diagnostic information of the plurality of the diagnosed parts is classified into the normal group or the abnormal group to determine whether the repair is complete.

2. The vehicle diagnosing apparatus according to claim 1 , further comprising a parameter generating unit configured to generate the determination information based on diagnostic information about the first vehicle and/or diagnostic information about a second vehicle before the maintenance work is performed on the on-board device of the first vehicle.

3. A vehicle diagnosing system comprising a computer-readable storage medium with an executable program stored thereon, an on-board diagnosing unit mounted on a first vehicle and/or a second vehicle, and a vehicle diagnosing apparatus for detecting an abnormality of the first vehicle,
the vehicle diagnosing apparatus comprising:
a maintenance result finalizing unit configured to read diagnostic information from the on-board diagnosing unit of the first vehicle after a maintenance work is performed on an individual part of the first vehicle, and configured to finalize a result of the maintenance work based on the diagnostic information read from the on-board diagnosing unit of the first vehicle after the maintenance work of the individual part;
a storage unit configured to store normal value information for determining an appropriateness of the result of the maintenance work finalized by the maintenance result finalizing unit, wherein the normal value information is based on diagnostic information collected from a plurality of vehicles other than the first vehicle;
a determination unit configured to automatically determine the appropriateness of the finalized result of the maintenance work with reference to the normal value information in the storage unit, by using an iterative process where the individual part or correlating parts are repeatedly checked to assure completeness of a finalized repair to the individual part; and
a notifying unit configured to provide a notification of a result of the determination made by the determination unit,
wherein the normal value information stored in the storage unit of the vehicle diagnosing apparatus is generated from the diagnostic information about the first vehicle and/or the second vehicle received in a server; and
a network interface device configured to transmit abnormality elimination information that indicates the abnormality has been eliminated and that is generated from information of the individual part together with vehicle identification information of the first vehicle to the server, wherein the abnormality elimination information includes information that a diagnosed part indicated by a diagnosis code of an abnormality diagnosis information received from the first vehicle before the maintenance work is performed is different from a diagnosed part that is replaced with a repair part,
wherein the diagnostic information, which the determination unit uses with reference to the normal value information to determine the appropriateness of the finalized result of the maintenance work for the individual part, includes diagnostic information from a plurality of the correlating parts that exhibit diagnostic information that correlates with normal-state diagnostic information that the individual part would exhibit during use of the vehicle, and
wherein the diagnostic information indicates a location and extent of a failure,
the individual part is associated with the temporal or spatial restrictions in order to determine the appropriateness of the finalized result of the maintenance work for the individual part, and
wherein pattern recognition is used to determine whether the diagnostic information is normal or abnormal,
wherein the maintenance result finalizing unit saves information about the individual part in the storage unit when an error amount between the normal value information and the diagnostic information exceeds a predetermined threshold and a probability of an abnormity is determined based on the error amount,
wherein a set of the diagnostic information for a plurality of the diagnosed parts that correlate with the individual part is gathered into normal and abnormal groups, and the pattern recognition is used to determine whether the diagnostic information of the plurality of the diagnosed parts is classified into the normal group or the abnormal group to determine whether the repair is complete.

4. The vehicle diagnosing

Assignees

• Ishikawa Tomoyasu
• Toyota Motor Co Ltd

Inventors

• Ishikawa Tomoyasu

Classifications

• G07C5/008

  communicating information to a remotely located station (transmission systems for measured values G08C) · CPC title

• G07C5/0808 Primary

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