Powerline communications automotive network

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9871669-B2
Application number	US-201414559779-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 3, 2014
Priority date	Dec 19, 2013
Publication date	Jan 16, 2018
Grant date	Jan 16, 2018

Abstract

An embodiment is a powerline communications (PLC) apparatus including a communications interface that implements a first communication protocol including of a transceiver that communicates over an electrical power distribution wiring of a vehicle. The first communication protocol includes a powerline communications automotive network (PLCAN) delimiter type (DT) (PLCAN-DT), and a PLCAN variant length field in a frame control comprising payload length, a number of symbols used, a PHY block size, and a number of repetitions used, wherein broadcast addressing is used in the network to transmit messages.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method comprising:
transmitting a powerline communication (PLC) message in a first communication protocol over an electrical power distribution wiring of a vehicle, wherein transmitting the PLC message in the first communication protocol comprises:
transmitting a PLC automotive network (PLCAN) delimiter type;
transmitting a PLCAN variant field (VF PLCAN) comprising a number of users, user identifications (IDs), payload length, payload data, and a repetition number, wherein the repetition number corresponds to a number of times the transmission of the PLC message is to be repeated over the electrical power distribution wiring of the vehicle; and
transmitting a first payload to a first user;

determining if the vehicle is in motion; and
switching between the first communication protocol and a second communication protocol based on whether the vehicle is determined to be in motion, wherein the second communication protocol comprises a second PLC message transmitted over the electrical power distribution wiring of the vehicle.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising transmitting a second payload to a second user.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the first payload and the second payload are a same size.

4. The method of claim 2 , wherein the first payload and the second payload are a different size.

5. The method of claim 2 , wherein the PLCAN delimiter type is transmitted in a PLCAN frame control block, wherein the first and second payloads are transmitted during a medium access control (MAC) protocol data unit (MDPU) payload.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein the PLCAN frame control block is transmitted before the MDPU payload.

7. The method of claim 2 further comprising:
transmitting an acknowledgement from the first user after a last payload has been transmitted in the PLC message and before a preamble of a next PLC message; and
transmitting an acknowledgement from the second user after a last payload has been transmitted in the PLC message and before a preamble of a next PLC message.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein the acknowledgements from the first and second users are priority resolution slot (PRS) symbols.

9. The method of claim 1 further comprising:
determining a location of the vehicle; and
switching between the first communication protocol and the second communication protocol based on the location of the vehicle.

10. The method of claim 1 further comprising repeating the transmission of the PLC message at least two times.

11. The method of claim 1 , wherein the PLC message is sent using broadcast addressing.

12. The method of claim 1 , wherein the repetition number is two.

13. The method of claim 1 , wherein the repetition number is three.

14. A method for communication between vehicle subsystems, the method comprising:
transmitting a powerline communication (PLC) message in a first communication protocol over an electrical power distribution wiring of a vehicle, wherein transmitting the PLC message in the first communication protocol comprises:
transmitting a PLC automotive network (PLCAN) delimiter type (DT_PLCAN);
transmitting a PLCAN variant field (VF_PLCAN) comprising a number of users, user identifications (IDs), payload data, a payload length, a number of symbols, and a physical (PHY) block size; and
transmitting a payload to a user;

determining if the vehicle is in motion; and
switching between the first communication protocol and a second communication protocol over the electrical power distribution wiring of the vehicle based on whether the vehicle is determined to be in motion.

15. The method of claim 14 , wherein the PHY block size is from 128 bits to 136 bits.

16. The method of claim 14 , further comprising:
determining a location of the vehicle; and
switching between the first communication protocol and a third communication protocol over the electrical power distribution wiring of the vehicle based on the location of the vehicle.

17. The method of claim 14 , wherein the PLCAN delimiter type is transmitted in a PLCAN frame control block, and wherein the payload is transmitted during a medium access control (MAC) protocol data unit (MDPU) payload.

18. The method of claim 17 further comprising transmitting an acknowledgement from the user after a payload has been transmitted in the PLC message and before a preamble of a next PLC message.

19. The method of claim 18 , wherein the acknowledgement from the user is a priority resolution slot (PRS) symbol.

20. The method of claim 14 , wherein the PLC message is sent using broadcast addressing.

21. A method for multi-user communication between vehicle subsystems, the method comprising:
transmitting a powerline communication (PLC) message in a first communication protocol over an electrical power distribution wiring of a vehicle, wherein transmitting the PLC message in the first communication protocol comprises:
transmitting a PLC automotive network (PLCAN) delimiter type (DT_PLCAN);
transmitting a PLCAN variant field (VF_PLCAN) comprising a number of users, user identifications (IDs), payload length, and payload data; and
transmitting each of a plurality of payloads to a corresponding plurality of users in accordance with the VF_PLCAN;

determining if the vehicle is in motion; and
switching between the first communication protocol and a second communication protocol based on whether the vehicle is determined to be in motion, wherein the second communication protocol comprises a second PLC message transmitted over the electrical power distribution wiring of the vehicle.

22. The method of claim 21 , further comprising dividing a payload into the plurality of payloads prior to transmitting each of the plurality of payloads.

23. The method of claim 22 , wherein the dividing the payload is in accordance with a function corresponding to each of the plurality of payloads.

24. The method of claim 22 , wherein the dividing the payload is in accordance with a message content corresponding to each of the plurality of payloads.

25. The method of claim 24 , wherein each of the plurality of payloads contain information of one or more of the data controller source, data destination, data purpose, or data content.

26. The method of claim 21 , wherein a length of each of the plurality of payloads has a variable-width.

27. The method of claim 21 , wherein a length of each of the plurality of payloads has a same width.

28. The method of claim 21 , wherein the PLCAN delimiter type is transmitted in a PLCAN frame control block, and wherein each of the plurality of payloads is transmitted during a medium access control (MAC) protocol data unit (MDPU) payload.

29. The method of claim 21 further comprising transmitting an acknowledgement from each of the plurality of users after a corresponding payload has been transmitted in the PLC message and before a preamble of a next PLC message.

30. The method of claim 29 , wherein the acknowledgement from each of the plurality of users is a priority resolution slot (PRS) symbol.

31. The method of claim 21 , wherein the payload length further comprises more than one payload length, each of the more than one payload lengths being associated with a different user ID.

32. The method of claim 21 , further comprising:
determini

Assignees

• St Microelectronics Inc

Inventors

• Logvinov Oleg
• Zhang Bo
• Liu Huijuan
• Macaluso Michael John
• Allen James D

Classifications

• H04L2012/40273

  the transportation system being a vehicle · CPC title

• H04L12/40032

  Details regarding a bus interface enhancer · CPC title

• H04L2012/40215

  Controller Area Network CAN · CPC title

• H04L12/1886 Primary

  with traffic restrictions for efficiency improvement, e.g. involving subnets or subdomains · 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