阅读说明：本技术 用于测试车辆的至少一个发射天线的方法 (Method for testing at least one transmitting antenna of a vehicle ) 是由 C·布德 X·布雷桑 V·贾玛特 于 2019-07-18 设计创作，主要内容包括：本发明的目的在于用于从测试电脑和电子钥匙测试车辆、尤其是机动车的至少一个发射天线的方法。(The invention relates to a method for testing at least one transmitting antenna of a vehicle, in particular a motor vehicle, from a test computer and an electronic key.)

1. Method for testing at least one transmitting antenna (110) of a vehicle (10), in particular of a motor vehicle, from an electronic key (20) and a testing computer (30), the vehicle comprising:

a plurality of transmit antennas (110),

a computer (120) capable of controlling signal transmission by the transmit antenna (110),

a communication network (130) connectable to the test computer (30),

the electronic key (20) being able to receive the signal sent by the transmitting antenna (110) and to transmit a signal comprising a response message to the computer (120), the method comprising the steps of:

receiving (E1), by the computer (120) via the communication network (130), the scene identifier sent by the testing computer (30) to be implemented to test at least one of the transmitting antennas (110) and the configuration identifier of the transmitting antenna (110) of the vehicle (10),

selecting (E2) an index stored in a first table based on the scene identifier, the first table being recorded in a storage area (102-1) of the computer (120),

selecting (E3), in a second table recorded in a memory area (120-1) of the computer (120), based on said selected index, the number of power values stored in the response message sent by the electronic key (20) and the number of data frames to be used for sending said power values received to the test computer (30) via the communication network (130),

controlling (E4), by the computer (120), transmission of at least one signal by the at least one transmitting antenna (110) based on the received scene identifier,

transmitting the at least one signal by the at least one transmitting antenna (110) being controlled,

receiving the transmitted at least one signal by the electronic key (20),

measuring (E5) a power value of the at least one signal received by the electronic key (20),

transmitting (E6) the measured at least one power value to the computer (120) by the electronic key (20) in a response message,

receiving (E7) a response message by the computer (120),

extracting (E8) at least one power value contained in the received response message based on the number of power values selected in the second table,

sending (E9) the extracted at least one power value to the testing computer (30) via the communication network (130) in as many data frames as the number of data frames selected in the second table.

2. The method of the preceding claim, wherein the first table comprises, for each value pair, a single value of the index, the value pair being a scene identifier and a configuration identifier of a transmitting antenna (110) of the vehicle (10).

3. The method according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the second table comprises, for each value pair, a single value, the value pair being an index and a number of power values stored in a response message sent by the electronic key (20).

4. The method according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the second table comprises, for each value pair, a single value, the value pair being an index and a number of data frames to be used for sending the received power value to the test computer (30) via the communication network (130).

5. Computer (120) for a vehicle (10), in particular a motor vehicle, the vehicle (10) comprising:

a plurality of transmit antennas (110) capable of being controlled to transmit signals,

a communication network (130) connectable to a test computer, the computer (120) being able to communicate with an electronic key (20), the electronic key (20) being able to receive signals transmitted by the transmitting antenna (110) and being able to transmit signals comprising response messages to the computer (20), the computer (20) comprising a memory area (120-1) in which a first table is recorded in which scene identifiers and indexes are associated, and a second table in which each of the indexes is associated with a value pair comprising a number of power values stored in response messages transmitted by the electronic key (20) and a number of data frames to be used for transmitting the received power values to the test computer (30) via the communication network (130), the computer (120) being configured to:

receiving, via the communication network (130), a scene identifier sent by the testing computer (10) to be implemented to test at least one of the transmitting antennas (110) and a configuration identifier of the transmitting antenna (110) of the vehicle (10),

selecting an index corresponding to the identifier in a first table,

selecting the value pair associated with the selected index in a second table,

controlling transmission of at least one signal by the at least one transmit antenna (110) based on the received scene identifier,

receiving a response message sent by the electronic key (20) comprising at least one power value of at least one signal transmitted by at least one transmitting antenna (110),

extracting at least one power value contained in the received response message based on the number of power values selected in the second table,

sending the extracted at least one power value to the test computer (30) via the communication network (130) in as many data frames as the number of data frames selected in the second table.

6. The computer (120) of the preceding claim, wherein the first table comprises, for each value pair, a single value of the index, the value pair being a scene identifier and a configuration identifier of a transmitting antenna (110) of the vehicle (10).

7. The computer (120) according to any one of claims 5 or 6, wherein the second table comprises a single value for each value pair, the value pair being an index and a number of power values stored in a response message sent by the electronic key (20).

8. The computer (120) of any of claims 5 to 7, wherein the second table comprises a single value for each value pair, the value pair being an index and a number of data frames to be used for transmitting the received power value to the test computer (30) via the communication network (130).

9. Vehicle (10), in particular motor vehicle, comprising:

a plurality of transmit antennas (110),

the computer (120) according to one of claims 5 to 8, and

a communication network (130) connectable to the test computer (30).

10. Test system (1), comprising:

the vehicle (10) according to the preceding claim,

an electronic key (20) capable of receiving a signal transmitted by a transmitting antenna (110) of the vehicle (10) and of transmitting a signal comprising a response message to a computer (120) of the vehicle (10), and

a test computer (30) connectable to a communication network (130) of the vehicle (10) for exchanging data frames with the computer (10).

Technical Field

The present invention relates to computers for vehicles, in particular motor vehicles, and more particularly to configuration tables for use in such computers. The invention is particularly aimed at simplifying the existing structure of the configuration table used today in vehicle computers, in order to save the limited resources of said computers.

Background

Nowadays, motor vehicles are equipped with a plurality of computers, enabling the management of the devices of the vehicle, such as the unlocking opening feature (ouvrant), the dashboard, etc. It is also known to use electronic keys to unlock, among other things, the opening components of a vehicle or to start an engine.

In order to test these devices, in particular during the production phase of the vehicle, it is known to implement various scenarios depending on the device to be tested. These tests are performed from a computer (andinateur) which sends to the relevant computer the identifiers of the scenes to be implemented, these scenes being stored in the memory area of the computer.

For example, when it is desired to test the unlocking of the opening member, the computer responsible for this unlocking controls a certain number of vehicle antennas to cause them to transmit signals according to the chosen scenario. These signals are received by the electronic key, which measures its power and sends the power values of the signals received from each antenna to the computer in a single response message. The power value received in the response message is then extracted by the computer and inserted into one or more data frames, which is put on the communication Network of the vehicle (for example a CAN (Control Area Network) bus type Network, which is well known to those skilled in the art) to which the test computer is also connected in order to retrieve said power value and verify whether the equipment and the antenna used are functioning correctly.

In order to enable the computer to know how many power values are stored in the message received from the electronic key, the computer accesses a table stored in a memory area, which enables the computer to deduce from the scene identifier the number of values expected in the response message and to know how many data frames should be used to transmit the power values over the communication network of the vehicle to transmit them to the test computer.

The table used therefore lists, for each scene identifier, the number of power values to be expected in the response message sent by the electronic key and the number of data frames to be used for sending the power values to the test computer via the communication network of the vehicle.

The storage of all this data in a table stored in a computer consumes a large part of the memory area of said computer. This presents a significant drawback in terms of the on-board computer of a motor vehicle having limited capacity and resources.

Therefore, there is a need for a simple and effective solution that enables to remedy at least partially these drawbacks, in particular reducing the costs and the complexity of the vehicle architecture.

Disclosure of Invention

To this end, the invention firstly aims at a method for testing at least one transmitting antenna of a vehicle, in particular a motor vehicle, from an electronic key and a testing computer, the vehicle comprising:

a plurality of transmit antennas, each of which is associated with a different antenna,

a computer capable of controlling signal transmission by the transmitting antenna,

a communication network connectable to the test computer,

the electronic key being capable of receiving the signal transmitted by the transmitting antenna and of transmitting a signal comprising a response message to the computer, the method comprising the steps of:

receiving, by the computer via the communication network, a scene identifier sent by the testing computer to be implemented to test at least one of the transmitting antennas and a configuration identifier of the transmitting antenna of the vehicle,

selecting an index stored in a first table based on the scene identifier, the first table recorded in a storage area of the computer,

selecting, based on the selected index, in a second table recorded in a memory area of the computer, the number of power values stored in a response message transmitted by the electronic key and the number of data frames to be used for transmitting the received power values to the test computer via the communication network,

controlling, by the computer, transmission of at least one signal by the at least one transmit antenna based on the received scene identifier,

transmitting the at least one signal by the at least one transmit antenna controlled,

receiving, by the electronic key, the transmitted at least one signal,

measuring, by the electronic key, a power value of the received at least one signal,

transmitting, by the electronic key, the measured at least one power value to the computer in a response message,

receiving, by the computer, the response message,

extracting at least one power value contained in the received response message based on the number of power values selected in the second table,

sending the extracted at least one power value to the test computer via the communication network in as many data frames as the number of data frames selected in the second table.

The use of two tables, one of which comprises an index each pointing to a value pair, makes it possible to significantly limit the amount of data and thus the space in the memory area required for carrying out the test, which is particularly advantageous for on-board computers of motor vehicles.

Advantageously, the first table comprises, for each value pair, a single value of the index, said value pair being a scene identifier and a configuration identifier of the transmitting antenna of the vehicle.

According to one aspect of the invention, the second table comprises, for each value pair, a single value, said value pair being an index and a number of power values stored in a response message sent by the electronic key.

Advantageously, the second table comprises, for each value pair, a single value, said value pair being an index and the number of data frames to be used for sending said power value received to the test computer via the communication network.

The invention also relates to a computer for a vehicle, in particular a motor vehicle, comprising a plurality of transmitting antennas that can be controlled to transmit signals and a communication network that can be connected to a test computer, the computer being capable of communicating with an electronic key, the electronic key being capable of receiving the signal transmitted by the transmitting antenna and being capable of transmitting a signal including a response message to the computer, the computer including a storage area having recorded therein a first table and a second table, in a first table scene identifiers are associated with indices, in a second table each of said indices is associated with a value pair, the value pair comprises a number of power values stored in a response message sent by the electronic key and a number of data frames to be used for sending the received power values to the test computer via the communication network, the computer being configured to:

receiving, via the communication network, a scene identifier sent by the testing computer to be implemented to test at least one of the transmitting antennas and a configuration identifier of the transmitting antenna of the vehicle,

selecting an index corresponding to the identifier in a first table,

selecting the value pair associated with the selected index in a second table,

controlling transmission of at least one signal by the at least one transmit antenna based on the received scene identifier,

receiving a response message sent by the electronic key, including at least one power value of at least one signal transmitted by at least one transmitting antenna,

extracting at least one power value contained in the received response message based on the number of power values selected in the second table,

sending the extracted at least one power value to the test computer via the communication network in as many data frames as the number of data frames selected in the second table.

Advantageously, the first table comprises, for each value pair, a single value of the index, said value pair being a scene identifier and a configuration identifier of the transmitting antenna of the vehicle.

According to one aspect of the invention, the second table comprises, for each value pair, a single value, said value pair being an index and a number of power values stored in a response message sent by the electronic key.

Advantageously, the second table comprises, for each value pair, a single value, said value pair being an index and the number of data frames to be used for sending said power value received to the test computer via the communication network.

The invention also relates to a vehicle, in particular a motor vehicle, comprising a plurality of transmitting antennas, a computer as described above, and a communication network that can be connected to a test computer.

The invention finally relates to a test system comprising: a vehicle as described above; an electronic key capable of receiving a signal transmitted by a transmitting antenna of the vehicle and transmitting a signal including a response message to a computer of the vehicle; and a test computer connectable to a communication network of the vehicle for exchanging data frames with the computer.

Drawings

Further features and advantages of the invention will become apparent in the following description, which is made with reference to the accompanying drawings, given by way of non-limiting example, and in which similar objects are given the same reference numerals.

Fig. 1 schematically shows an embodiment of the system according to the invention.

Fig. 2 shows an embodiment of the method according to the invention.

Detailed Description

Fig. 1 shows an embodiment of a system 1 according to the invention. In this example, the system 1 comprises a vehicle 10 (in particular a motor vehicle), an electronic key 20, and a test computer 30.

The vehicle 10 includes a plurality of transmitting antennas 110, a computer 120, and a communication network 130.

The electronic key 20 is capable of receiving the signals transmitted by the transmit antennas 110 of the plurality of transmit antennas 110, for example, over RF, LF, Wifi, or Bluetooth type wireless communication links.

The electronic key 20 can measure the power of the signal received from each of the plurality of transmitting antennas 110 and can transmit a signal including a response message to the computer 120, the response message including one or more measured power values.

A communication network 130 on board the vehicle 10 enables data to be exchanged between devices of the vehicle 10 and the outside of the vehicle 10, in particular with a test computer 30 connected to said communication network 130. The communication Network 130 may be of the CAN (Controller Area Network) bus type known per se.

The computer 120 is configured to control the transmit antenna 110 such that the transmit antenna 110 transmits a signal. The transmitting antennas 110 may be controlled sequentially or simultaneously according to predetermined scenes stored in the memory area 120-1 of the computer 120, each scene being identified by means of an identifier.

Computer 120 includes a first table and a second table in its memory area 120-1. The first table associates an identifier of each scene with a predefined index according to a given configuration of the transmit antennas 110. The second table associates each index with a value pair comprising:

the number of power values stored in the response message sent by the electronic key, and

the number of data frames to be used for transmitting said power value received to the test computer via the communication network.

The computer 120 is configured to receive the scene identifier and the configuration identifier of the transmitting antenna 110 transmitted by the testing computer 30 via the communication network 130. The scene identifier enables the computer 120 to determine the kind (nature) of the scene to be implemented to test a particular configuration of the transmit antenna 110.

The computer 120 is configured to select an index in a first table corresponding to the received scene identifier and the configuration identifier of the transmit antenna 110, and select a value pair in a second table associated with the index selected in the first table.

Examples of the first table and examples of the second table are shown below:

TABLE 1: examples of the first Table

TABLE 2: example of the second table.

The same index with pointer action can then be used for different value pairs of the scene identifier and the configuration identifier of the transmitting antenna 110, which avoids having to repeat these value pairs in the first table, thus enabling to optimize the size of said first table and thus the memory area 120-1 of the computer 120.

The second table includes pairs of numbers of predicted power values and numbers of data frames to be used, the pairs of numbers being unique and each corresponding to a single index. The second table can then be easily updated with a new number pair of the predicted power value and the number of data frames to be used by adding a row with a new index and the new value, which enables easy maintenance of the computer 120 and thus the vehicle 10.

The computer 120 is configured to control transmission of at least one signal by the at least one transmit antenna 110 based on the received scene identifier.

The computer 120 is configured to receive a response message sent by the electronic key 20, which includes at least one power value of at least one signal transmitted by at least one of the transmitting antennas 110.

The computer 120 is configured to extract at least one power value contained in the received response message based on the number of power values selected in the second table.

The calculator 120 is configured to send the extracted at least one power value to the test computer 30 via the communication network 130 in as many data frames as the number of data frames selected in the second table.

The invention will now be described in its embodiment with reference to fig. 2.

For example, the vehicle 10 has a configuration of the transmit antenna 110 to be tested, as shown in the example of FIG. 1, the transmit antenna 110 to be tested includes a transmit antenna labeled 110-1 in the driver's door handle, a transmit antenna labeled 110-2 in the front passenger's door handle, a transmit antenna labeled 110-3 mounted at a center portion of the instrument panel of the vehicle 10, a transmit antenna labeled 110-4 mounted approximately at the center of the vehicle 10, and a transmit antenna labeled 110-5 mounted at the trunk of the vehicle 10. For example, the configuration n ° 2 described in table 1 above may correspond to transmission by each of the transmission antennas 110 in the following order: a transmitting antenna labeled 110-1 in the driver's door handle, a transmitting antenna labeled 110-2 in the front passenger's door handle, a transmitting antenna labeled 110-3 mounted at the center portion of the instrument panel, a transmitting antenna labeled 110-4 mounted approximately at the center of the vehicle 10, and a transmitting antenna labeled 110-5 mounted at the trunk of the vehicle 10.

The scenario to be tested may be to have each of the five transmit antennas 110-1, 110-2, 110-3, 110-4, 110-5 transmit in turn in the exact order.

The scene is stored in the memory area 120-1 so that the computer 120 knows the transmission order of the transmission antennas 110-1, 110-2, 110-3, 110-4, 110-5 to be controlled.

The scenario may first be selected by an operator on a test computer 30 connected to the communication network 130. In step E0, the testing computer 30 sends the selected scene identifier and the configuration identifier of the transmitting antenna 110 to be tested to the computer 120 via the communication network 130. The operator can, for example, select scene n ° 3 and configuration n ° 2 in table 1 described above.

After the computer 120 receives the scene identifier and the configuration identifier of the transmission antenna 110 in step E1, the computer 120 selects an index corresponding to the received scene identifier and the received configuration identifier of the transmission antenna 110 in the first table in step E2. For example, in table 1, scene n ° 3 and configuration n ° 2 correspond to index n ° 6.

Computer 120 then selects in step E3 the value pairs in the second table that correspond to the indices selected in the first table. In Table 2 described above, the index n ° 6 corresponds to the value pair (3, 1).

Then in step E4, the computer 120 controls the transmission of signals by each of the transmit antennas 110 according to the received scenario, e.g., for scenario n ° 3, the transmit antenna labeled 110-1 installed in the driver's door handle is the first to transmit, then the transmit antenna labeled 110-2 installed in the front passenger's door handle, then the transmit antenna labeled 110-3 installed at the center portion of the instrument panel, then the transmit antenna labeled 110-4 installed approximately at the center of the vehicle 10, and finally the transmit antenna labeled 110-5 installed at the trunk of the vehicle 10.

When the transmitting antenna 110 transmits a Signal, the electronic key 20, which is located within the Signal coverage of the transmitting antenna 110 as a precondition, receives the Signal in turn, measures its power, e.g. a per se known RSSI (Received Signal Strength Indication) value, in step E5, and then sends the measured power value to the computer 120, e.g. over a Radio Frequency (RF) communication interface in a so-called "response" message, in step E6.

After the computer 120 receives the response message (step E7), in step E8, the computer 120 extracts each power value contained in the received response message using the number of power values selected in the second table, for example, 3 in the case of index 6 in table 2.

The computer 120 then sends the extracted one or more power values (3 power values in the case of index 6 of table 2) to the testing computer 30 in as many data frames as the number of data frames selected in the second table (e.g., a single frame in the case of index 6 of table 2) via the communication network 130 in step E9.

Then, in step E10, the test computer 30 or an operator using the test computer can evaluate whether the equipment used in the scenario (in particular the transmitting antenna 110) is functioning correctly based on the received power values.

In this example of tables 1 and 2, 62 valid data values are used (40 in table 1 and 22 in table 2), while in the corresponding prior art table, each pair of scene identifier and configuration identifier associated to a number of power values stored in the response message sent by the electronic key 20 and to a number of data frames to be used for sending said power values received to the test computer 30 via the communication network 130, 80 values are used in such a table, namely a 22.5% benefit.

Also, in a new vehicle with 20 scenarios and 6 configurations, the method according to the invention enables a gain from 120 stored values to 90 stored values, i.e. 25%. It can then be seen that this benefit increases with the size of the table, which is advantageous if the number of devices in the future and thus the number of scenarios to be tested and the number of configurations are likely to increase.

The invention thus makes it possible to significantly reduce the size of the memory area for storing the values used during the testing of scenarios according to the configuration, for the same scenario and the same configuration to be tested, which is particularly advantageous for on-board computers in motor vehicles.