Software system of electronic control unit for vehicle and design method thereof

Abstract

A software system for use in an electronic control unit (ECU) is designed to facilitate its reuse without redesigning of triggers even when a target hardware is changed. The design of the software system includes a classification of trigger types into two categories, that is, a function trigger and a software trigger, and combination of the function trigger to the software tasks in addition to the association of the function triggers with the software triggers for hardware independent design of the software system.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description made with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 shows a block diagram of functional structure of a vehicle control network system in an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 2 shows a time chart of a process sequence of respective components shown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 shows a block diagram of the vehicle control network system in the embodiment;

FIG. 4 shows a block diagram of the vehicle control network system in association with the components shown in FIG. 2;

FIG. 5 shows a block diagram of functional structures of the components in association with activation triggers;

FIG. 6 shows a time chart of runnable entities in association with triggers and tasks in an engine ECU; and

FIG. 7 shows a block diagram of software tasks in association with triggers and runnable entities.

Claims

1. A software system for use in plural vehicle electronic control units of a vehicle control network, the software system stored on a medium to implement a vehicle control function in a software component to the plural vehicle electronic control units comprising: plural software components for implementing plural vehicle control functions to at least one of the plural vehicle electronic control units,wherein plural tasks that are started by electronic control unit software implemented in at least one of the plural vehicle electronic control units are respectively associated with at least one of plural function triggers for execution of at least one of the plural vehicle control functions in the plural software components, andeach of the plural tasks generates at least one of the plural function triggers for execution of one of the at least one of the plural software components and the at least one of the plural vehicle control functions.

2. The software system as in claim 1, wherein the plural tasks include an event task and periodic tasks,the event task is started based on a hardware-dependent event trigger that is generated by one of the at least one of the plural vehicle electronic control unit and the vehicle control network, andthe periodic tasks are timer-controlled periodic triggers that are generated at a constant generation cycle based on one of a vehicle electronic control unit timer and a synchronization timer transmitted through the vehicle control network.

3. The software system as in claim 2, wherein each of the periodic tasks retains operation information on operation conditions of each of the plural software components,the operation information indicates whether each of the plural software components are in operation or not in operation, andeach of the periodic tasks is configured not to output the function triggers in an operation period of one of the plural software components where the operation information of the one of the plural software components indicates that the one of the plural software components is not in operation even when at least one of the periodic tasks is started based on at least one of the periodic triggers.

4. A method of designing a software system used in plural electronic control units of a vehicle control network comprising steps of: dividing vehicle control functions into plural software components;structuring the plural software components into hierarchical layers;designing an execution sequence of the plural software components by assigning a function trigger to each of the plural software components;implementing each of the plural software components respectively to at least one of the plural electronic control units;preparing structured sub-functions for each of the plural software components based on an analysis of a function of each of the plural software components;setting each of the function triggers for executing one of the structured sub-functions; anddesigning arrangement of the function triggers in association with each of the software tasks for generation of each of the function triggers by at least one of the software tasks.

5. The method as in claim 4, wherein the software tasks are designed as an event task and periodic tasks; andeach of the software tasks is associated with software triggers based on respective frequencies of execution of the software tasks.