US-12626541-B2 - Mesh vehicle network to share and report large data logs to backend servers

US12626541B2US 12626541 B2US12626541 B2US 12626541B2US-12626541-B2

Abstract

A computer-implemented method for acquiring log data related to operation of a vehicle electronic system, comprising: acquiring, by a processor of an electronic system installed in a first vehicle, log data related to operation of the vehicle electronic system; storing, by the processor, the log data in a buffer memory of the first vehicle; selecting, by the processor, log data among the log data stored in the buffer memory; transmitting, by the processor, the selected log data to a remote server through a wide area network, a free space or a space in the buffer memory occupied by the transmitted log data being usable to store newly acquired log data; establishing a transmission link through a wireless local area network with a communication circuit installed in a second vehicle; and transmitting, by the processor, non-selected log data stored in the buffer memory to the access point through the transmission link.

Inventors

Julien MAITRE
Yann QUIBRIAC

Assignees

VOLVO TRUCK CORPORATION

Dates

Publication Date: 20260512
Application Date: 20240223
Priority Date: 20230224

Claims (13)

1 . A computer-implemented method for acquiring log data related to operation of a vehicle electronic system, the method comprising: acquiring, by a processor of an electronic system installed in a first vehicle, operational log data related to operation of the electronic system of the first vehicle; storing, by the processor, the operational log data in a buffer memory of the electronic system of the first vehicle; selecting, by the processor, a subset of operational log data among the operational log data stored in the buffer memory, wherein the selected subset of operational log data corresponds to data designated for immediate transmission to a remote server; transmitting, by the processor, the selected subset of operational log data to the remote server through a wide area network (WAN), a free space or a space in the buffer memory occupied by the transmitted subset of operational log data being usable to store newly acquired operational log data; establishing a transmission link through a wireless local area network (WLAN) with a communication circuit installed in a second vehicle; and transmitting, by the processor, non-selected operational log data stored in the buffer memory to the second vehicle through the WLAN transmission link, wherein the non-selected log data is transmitted to the second vehicle for subsequent transmission to the remote server, wherein the non-selected log data includes operational log data other than the selected subset operational log data.
2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein a priority level is attributed to each operational log data, the selected subset of operational log data having the highest priority level or levels.
3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein: a priority level is attributed to each operational log data, the selected subset of operational log data having a priority level greater than a priority threshold, and the priority threshold is adjusted as a function of a fill rate of the buffer memory by the operational log data that are not transmitted.
4 . The method of claim 1 , wherein all stored operational log data are selected when a space usable to store newly acquired operational log data in the buffer memory is greater than a memory threshold.
5 . The method of claim 4 , wherein the memory threshold is adjusted as a function of a distance between the first vehicle and a nearest vehicle configured to establish the transmission link through the wireless local area network with the first vehicle.
6 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising estimating, by the processor, a fill rate of the buffer memory by the operational log data that are not transmitted, the operational log data stored in the buffer memory being transmitted to the communication circuit through the transmission link when the fill rate of the buffer memory is higher than a transmission rate of the wide area network.
7 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising: receiving, by the processor, operational log data from the second vehicle through a transmission link of the wireless local area network, established with the communication circuit installed in the second vehicle; and storing, by the processor, in the buffer memory the operational log data received from the second vehicle, to be transmitted to the remote server.
8 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising encapsulating, by the processor, the operational log data stored in the buffer memory into data chunks, the operational log data being transmitted in the data chunks through the transmission link.
9 . The method of claim 8 , further comprising: estimating, by the processor, a bandwidth of the transmission through the transmission link; and adjusting a chunk size of the data chunks as a function of the estimated bandwidth.
10 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising establishing, by the processor, a transmission link to the server through a wireless wide area network.
11 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising establishing, by the processor, a transmission link to the server through the wireless local area network linking the processor to a fixed access point, the fixed access point being linked to the server through the wide area network.
12 . A vehicle electronic system comprising a computing circuit, and a communication circuit connectable to a wireless local area network and a buffer memory connected to the computing circuit, the vehicle electronic system being installed in a first vehicle, the computing circuit being configured to implement the method of claim 1 .
13 . A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions, which when executed by a processing circuitry, cause the processing circuitry to perform the steps comprising: acquiring, by a processor of an electronic system installed in a first vehicle, operational log data related to operation of the electronic system of the first vehicle; storing, by the processor, the operational log data in a buffer memory of the electronic system of the first vehicle; selecting, by the processor, a subset of operational log data among the operational log data stored in the buffer memory, wherein the selected subset of operational log data corresponds to data designated for immediate transmission to a remote server; transmitting, by the processor, the selected subset of operational log data to the remote server through a wide area network (WAN), a free space or a space in the buffer memory occupied by the transmitted subset of operational log data being usable to store newly acquired operational log data; establishing a transmission link through a wireless local area network (WLAN) with a communication circuit installed in a second vehicle; and transmitting, by the processor, non-selected operational log data stored in the buffer memory to the second vehicle through the WLAN transmission link, wherein the non-selected log data is transmitted to the second vehicle for subsequent transmission to the remote server, wherein the non-selected log data includes operational log data other than the selected subset operational log data.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION This application claims foreign priority to European Application No. 23158488.9 filed on Feb. 24, 2023, the disclosure and content of which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety. TECHNICAL FIELD The disclosure relates generally to vehicle data acquisition in development phases of vehicle electronic systems for debugging purposes and in customer support cases for diagnostic purposes. In particular aspects, the disclosure relates to data acquisition for the development and behavior debugging of driver assistance systems and self-driving vehicles. The disclosure can be applied to light, medium and heavy-duty vehicles, such as trucks, buses, and construction equipment, among other vehicle types. Although the disclosure may be described with respect to a particular vehicle, the disclosure is not restricted to any particular vehicle. BACKGROUND Existing solutions are already designed to retrieve many vehicle parameters. However, those parameters do not cover all use cases to trace faults or debug complex vehicle electronic systems such as driver assistance systems and self-driving systems. In such systems, many parameters need to be captured in real time and transmitted to a back-end server (generally from the vehicle manufacturer). Vehicle embedded processing systems and networks have an increasingly high speed. Thus, the amount of data to be logged and transmitted is huge especially regarding the available bandwidth through the cellular data networks (3G, 4G). In addition, the bandwidth of the cellular data networks is not constant and varies depending on the network performance and load. The memory of one or more of the vehicle processing systems can be used as a buffer to store logged data to be transmitted. However, such a use is limited when the data are produced at a higher rate than the network can transmit. Accordingly, there is a need to capture high volume of data in a vehicle and to transmit them to a back-end server. SUMMARY According to a first aspect of the disclosure, a computer-implemented method for acquiring log data related to operation of a vehicle electronic system, the method comprising: acquiring, by a processor of an electronic system installed in a first vehicle, log data related to operation of the vehicle electronic system; storing, by the processor, the log data in a buffer memory of the electronic system of the first vehicle; selecting, by the processor, log data among the log data stored in the buffer memory; transmitting, by the processor, the selected log data to a remote server through a wide area network, a free space or a space in the buffer memory occupied by the transmitted log data being usable to store newly acquired log data; establishing a transmission link through a wireless local area network with a communication circuit installed in a second vehicle; and transmitting, by the processor, non-selected log data stored in the buffer memory to the second vehicle through the transmission. The first aspect of the disclosure may seek to transmit high volume of data captured in a vehicle to a back-end server. A technical benefit may include reducing a risk to flood the buffer memory used to store the log data. In addition, when several vehicles are in or enter the transmission range of the first vehicle a mesh network formed by the wireless links established between the vehicles can be formed. In some examples, including in at least one preferred example, optionally attributing a priority level to each log data, the selected log data having the highest priority level or levels. A technical benefit may include enabling the selection of log data to be transmitted to the back-end server. In some examples, including in at least one preferred example, optionally attributing a priority level to each log data, the selected log data have a priority level greater than a priority threshold, and the priority threshold is adjusted as a function of a fill rate of the buffer memory by the log data that are not transmitted. A technical benefit may include enabling the selection of log data to be transmitted to the back-end server to be accurately adjusted to the capacity of the transmission network. In some examples, including in at least one preferred example, optionally selecting all stored log data when a space usable to store newly acquired log data in the buffer memory is greater than a memory threshold. A technical benefit may include enabling to transmit all log data directly to the back-end server when the capacity of the transmission network is sufficient. In some examples, including in at least one preferred example, optionally estimating, by the processor, a fill rate of the buffer memory by the log data that are not transmitted, the log data stored in the buffer memory being transmitted to the communication circuit through the transmission link when the fill rate of the buffer memory is higher than a transmission rate of the wide