JP7301865B2 - electronic controller - Google Patents

Description

The present invention relates to an electronic control device for an automobile, for example, and more particularly to an electronic control device capable of reducing the data processing load of applications.

Currently, in automobiles, research and development is progressing toward fully automated driving, in which the system handles all driving operations without human intervention. In order to realize such automatic driving, more than 10 sensors are attached to the vehicle to sense information about the vehicle's surroundings. The sensed object information such as pedestrians and vehicles is taken into an electronic control unit (ECU: Electronic Control Unit), processing such as recognition, judgment, and control is performed, and finally control command values are sent to each actuator. , vehicle control is performed.

On the other hand, although the scope of application of automated driving is expanding to urban areas, there are more objects in urban areas than on highways and suburbs. Therefore, the number of pieces of object information (pedestrians, vehicles, etc.) handled in the electronic control unit also increases.

However, depending on the performance of the electronic control unit responsible for most of the processing of automatic driving, there is a possibility that all the sensed information cannot be processed within the determined processing cycle. For example, when trying to turn right at an intersection in a downtown area, in an environment where there are a large number of pedestrians waiting at the intersection signal, all pedestrians detected by on-vehicle sensors such as cameras and radars subject to processing. Under such circumstances, pedestrians are usually stationary or do not affect the running of the vehicle, but some, for example, pedestrians ignoring traffic lights and pedestrians walking on the roadway , Bicycles must be monitored and appropriate controls should be implemented if they affect the running of the vehicle. However, if the performance of the electronic control unit is insufficient, information on pedestrians and vehicles ignoring traffic lights, which must be processed, will be buried in other object information, and the calculation will be performed within the predetermined processing cycle. and appropriate vehicle controls may not be implemented.

Therefore, in this field, it is a problem to reduce the processing load of the electronic control device in an environment where a large number of objects exist and the processing load of the electronic control device is high.

Regarding this point, Patent Document 1 discloses a process of giving priority to data in advance and integrating a plurality of pieces of object information according to the priority in control under an environment where a plurality of vehicles exist, such as a highway. We propose a method of selecting simple processing without integration processing.

JP 2018-036796 A

In autonomous driving, the recognition results of objects (pedestrians, vehicles, etc.) sensed by the sensors (camera, radar, etc.) attached to the vehicle are captured by the electronic control unit, and the application performs recognition, judgment, and control calculations. , and outputs a control command value to the actuator based on the calculation result.

On the other hand, when the application range of automated driving is expanded to urban areas and downtown areas, the number of objects that vehicles must sense will range from 10 to 100 or more. Therefore, in an environment where a large number of objects exist, there are many objects to be processed, and the amount of calculation increases. Accordingly, perception, judgment, and control applications must find out from large amounts of data which objects require urgency and influence collision avoidance and emergency steering.

However, when there are a large number of objects, it takes a long time to perform calculations, and there is a possibility that a series of calculations from recognition to control cannot be completed within the processing cycle of the application, and an appropriate control command value cannot be output. Therefore, it is a problem to reduce the amount of calculation in the electronic control unit.

In view of the above, in the present invention, there are provided a "priority assigning unit that assigns priority to sensed data according to external conditions and vehicle conditions, and a priority assigning unit that dynamically changes and determines the priority assigned to data." a priority determination unit, a data management unit that stores data to which priority is assigned, an application execution unit, and a data selection unit that selects data to be passed from the data management unit to the application execution unit according to the priority. control device."

According to the present invention, the application range of automated driving is expanded to urban areas and downtown areas, and even if the number of objects that the vehicle must sense ranges from 10 to 100 or more, the application can retrieve data according to the priority of the data. Since it can be processed, the processing load of the application can be reduced, and safety can be improved.

The figure which shows the connection state of the vehicle-mounted electronic control apparatus which concerns on the Example of this invention, and its peripheral device. FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of preset priority definition information DP; FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of priority setting in a priority determining unit 104; FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a database configuration example formed in a data management unit 103, which is a database; FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a processing flow from fetching information into the in-vehicle electronic control unit 10 to storing it in a data management unit 103; 4 is a diagram showing a processing flow in a data selection unit 102 and a data management unit 103; FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a specific processing flow of processing for selecting data to be passed to the application execution unit 101 in processing step S303 of FIG. 5; FIG. FIG. 10 is a diagram showing a processing flow for rearranging data in a data selection unit 102 according to a command from an application execution unit 101; FIG. 7 is a diagram showing a series of processes for manipulating a data transmission cycle when acquiring data of a data management unit 103 from an application execution unit 101; FIG. 4 is a diagram showing processing of data requiring urgency that affects travel of the own vehicle;

An electronic control unit according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings. In addition, although the method described in Patent Document 1 changes the application to be executed in the electronic control device according to the priority (selects the process that integrates the object information and the simple process that does not perform the integration process). On the other hand, in the present invention, it can be said that priority is given to each object without changing the application, and the data to be passed to the application is changed. In the following embodiments, the configuration and functions of the electronic control unit for realizing this will be described in detail.

FIG. 1 shows a connection state between an in-vehicle electronic control unit and its peripheral devices according to an embodiment of the present invention.

In-vehicle electronic control unit 10 acquires sensing information DS (DS1, DS2, DS3) from external world recognition sensor 108, map information 109, and internal world recognition sensor 110, and priority definition information DP from priority definition unit 105. It has gained. Based on these pieces of information, the control amount for controlling the vehicle is calculated, and control data DO is transmitted to the external control device 111 .

The in-vehicle electronic control unit 10 of FIG. 1 is composed of an application execution unit 101, a data selection unit 102, a data management unit 103, a priority determination unit 104, a priority assignment unit 106, and a data collection unit 107 as main functional elements. Priority definition information DP preset by the user is obtained from the priority definition unit 105 and used as a prerequisite for internal processing here.

After being activated, the in-vehicle electronic control unit 10 accesses the external priority definition unit 105 to obtain the priority definition information DP set in advance by the user. take a form that reflects

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of preset priority definition information DP, and the priority definition unit 105 defines items shown in FIG. 2 in advance by the user. In the example of FIG. 2, the priority definition information DP defines the resolution of the priority, and for example defines the priority by dividing it into four levels of emergency, high, medium and low. Although the priority is grasped discretely in the example of FIG. 2, it may be grasped as a numerical value. Also, the priority definition information DP defines a threshold for processing based on the priority. Further, the priority definition information DP is related to the processing cycle of the in-vehicle electronic control unit 10, which is the control computer, and indicates that once data is returned to the application execution unit 101 when data return processing is performed based on the cycle. It defines the number of counters for each threshold during periodic processing to determine whether to The priority definition information DP defines the sorting process when the number of data is equal to or greater than the threshold value. Note that FIG. 2 shows an example of the priority definition information DP, and the content is not limited to this. Needless to say, other than this may be adopted.

The priority definition unit 105 defines objects sensed by the external world recognition sensor 108, the map information 109, and the internal world recognition sensor 110, such as pedestrians, vehicles, bicycles, and motorcycles, and objects moving on paths and side roads. Alternatively, regarding the priority given to each piece of information on static objects such as signs, traffic lights, obstacles, roadside trees, and objects stationary on the course or on the side road, the resolution, the conditions for giving priority, and the priority It defines the means of processing data according to degree.

Here, the external world recognition sensor 108 grasps the external world situation, and the external world situation is an object sensed by the external world recognition sensor 108 mounted on the own vehicle. , obstacles, etc.) or static objects (which may include traffic lights, signs, obstacles, etc.).

FIG. 3 shows an example of priority setting in the priority determination unit 104. As shown in FIG. In this example, the priority is divided into four levels of emergency, high, medium, and low according to the definition of priority resolution in the priority definition information DP set by the priority definition unit 105. For example, When an event such as the presence of a pedestrian on the road is detected and ranked as urgent, data is returned to the application execution unit 101 each time the event occurs. As the internal processing, an interrupting emergency processing is executed within the control cycle at the event occurrence time (or in the next cycle if the processing in this cycle is impossible). If the priority is high or medium, the processing cycle is set to, for example, 2 cycles or 4 cycles, and data is returned to the application execution unit 101 in this unit. Alternatively, if the number of targets of this rank is large, the targets are sorted and omitted. It goes without saying that the return method to be adopted for each priority can be set as appropriate, and is not limited to the example of FIG.

Returning to FIG. 1, sensing information DS (DS1, DS2, DS3) is input from the external world recognition sensor 108, the map information 109, and the internal world recognition sensor 110 to the in-vehicle electronic control unit 10 via the data collection unit 107. there is These sensing information DS may be self-time-series information, or processed information obtained by combining a plurality of data and information, in addition to the directly measured values of the sensor. Further, it may be one using a predicted value in the future.

The sensing information DS includes, for example, acceleration/deceleration values of the vehicle sensed by the external world recognition sensor 108 or the internal world recognition sensor 110, vehicle direction information of the vehicle, trajectory plan information of the vehicle, risk map information, infrastructure, and so on. information, Vehicle to Vehicle (V2V) information sent from other vehicles, your vehicle's wiper status, your vehicle's headlight status, your vehicle's headlight irradiation range, and your vehicle's blind spots and other information.

The priority assigning unit 106 in FIG. 1 sets priorities for the sensing information DS input via the data collecting unit 107 from various viewpoints. For example, one of the viewpoints is the priority according to the area around the own vehicle. The area grasped by the sensor is further divided into small areas, and priority is set in advance for each small area. For example, a small area corresponding to a route is given a high priority, and a small area corresponding to a side road is given a low priority.

In addition to the priority according to the area, another example of another viewpoint is priority setting for each object. Trajectory prediction information, risk map information, object movement speed, movement direction, relative speed, relative distance, object size or Time To Collision (TTC) of the information of each object sensed by the external world recognition sensor 108 A priority is set for each object based on at least one or a value that can be calculated by combining them.

The priority given by the priority giving unit 106 is given based on at least one of the priority set based on the area and the priority set for each object. When calculating the final priority using both the priority according to the area and the priority assigned to each object, the priority is calculated based on the formula (1).
[Number 1]
Priority [N] t=
(α (area priority [N] t) * (1-α) object priority [N] t-MIN _t-1 )/
(MAX _t−1 −MIN _t−1 ) (1)
In equation (1), α is a coefficient set by the user between 1 and 0, region priority [N]t is the region-based priority of object N at time t, and object priority [N]t is the object N object-based priorities at time t, MIN _t−1 being the minimum priority of all objects at time t−1, MAX _t−1 representing the maximum priority of all objects at time t−1 ing.

The higher the priority, the more likely it is to affect the running of the own vehicle, and may be used discretely such as high, medium, and low, or may be set as a continuous value.

According to the embodiment of the present invention, the priority is the external world situation, or the internal world situation of the own vehicle, the trajectory prediction result, the tracking situation, the risk map, the moving speed of the target object, the type of the target object, the running situation of the own vehicle, The relative distance to the sensed object is set based on at least one. In addition, the priority includes objects that affect the travel of the own vehicle, objects that are expected to affect the travel of the own vehicle, objects that exist on the predicted trajectory of the own vehicle, blind spots of the own vehicle, At least one object existing in an area expected to be a blind spot is set high.

FIG. 4 shows an example of database configuration formed in the data management unit 103, which is a database. The database consists of, for example, an item number 31, a data ID 32, a priority 33, an object type (object type) 34, and data 35. , low, and an object type (object type) 34 is given. The data 35 preferably includes time data, and these data are deleted as appropriate after the vehicle passes the data acquisition point, and are always used while being replaced with new sensing data in front of the vehicle.

Next, a processing flow from fetching information into the in-vehicle electronic control unit 10 to storing it in the data management unit 103 will be described with reference to FIG. Here, a processing flow until the sensing information DS (DS1, DS2, DS3) acquired from the external world recognition sensor 108, the map information 109, and the internal world recognition sensor 110 is stored in the data management unit 103 will be described. Note that the data management unit 103 can also be called a database.

The processing flow of FIG. 5 starts at processing step S200, and in processing step S201, data from the external world recognition sensor 108, the map information 109, and the internal world recognition sensor 110 are collected by the in-vehicle electronic control unit 10 via the data collection unit 107. data collection process.

Processing step S202 corresponds to the functions of the priority determining unit 104 and the priority assigning unit 106, and the priority assigning unit 106 performs priority defining unit A priority calculated according to the priority definition information DP obtained from 105 is given.

In processing step S203, it is confirmed that the given priority is the processing data related to the event in FIG. Since it is "urgent", the process moves to step S205, and the corresponding data is directly transmitted to the data selection unit 102. After that, the data may be transmitted to the data management unit 103 . The database in FIG. 4 shows an example in which emergency information is also held.

Note that in FIG. 1, when the processing data is related to an event with the highest priority "emergency", the data selection unit 102 to which the corresponding data is transmitted executes an interrupt process to the application execution unit 101, and immediately Acts to handle urgent data processing.

On the other hand, if it is determined in processing step S203 that the data is not event processing data, the priority is one of high, medium, and low. It is sent to the management unit 103, assigned with an ID for management, and managed.

Note that the application execution unit 101 in FIG. 1 accesses the data management unit 103 as appropriate in a normal state in which interrupt processing due to event processing data does not occur, and the priority levels accumulated here are high, medium, and low. are being processed using data from

Next, a processing flow in a normal state for acquiring data of the data management unit 103 from the application execution unit 101 will be described. The application execution unit 101 performs calculations for recognition, judgment, and control processing. Data stored in the data management unit 103 is used for each calculation.

In normal processing of the application execution unit 101 in FIG. 1, the application execution unit 101 first issues a data acquisition request S1 to the data management unit 103 . Data processing request S1 is first given to data selection unit 102. Data selection unit 102 searches for data in data management unit 103 in response to a request from application execution unit 101 and determines the priority determined by priority definition unit 105. Data to be passed to the application execution unit 101 is selected based on the definition.

For example, when the vehicle is traveling in a downtown area, the application execution unit 101 sends pedestrian data to the data management unit 103, which manages data in three discrete levels of priority: high, medium, and low. When there is a data acquisition request S1, the data selection unit 102 searches for pedestrian data managed by the data management unit 103 .

A processing flow in the data selection unit 102 and the data management unit 103 will be described with reference to FIG.

Processing step S300 in FIG. 6 starts with a pedestrian data acquisition request S1 from the application execution unit 101, and searches pedestrian data managed by the data management unit 103 in processing step S301.

As a result of the search, it is determined in the determination of processing step S302 whether or not a certain number or more of data on the corresponding pedestrian have been retrieved. If the number of hits is equal to or greater than the predetermined number, processing for selecting data to be passed to the application execution unit 101 is executed in processing step S303. The number of pieces of data selected in processing step S303 or all the pieces of data determined to be less than the predetermined number in the judgment of processing step S302 are passed to the application execution unit 101 by the processing of processing step S304.

FIG. 7 shows specific processing contents of processing for selecting data to be passed to the application execution unit 101 in processing step S303 of FIG. Here, as a criterion for selection, only data given a high priority that is expected to affect the running of the own vehicle is passed to the application execution unit 101 . The application execution unit 101 realizes reduction of the processing load by using only the data given high priority that may affect the running of the own vehicle for the computation of recognition, judgment, and control.

In the selection flow of FIG. 7, the processing of the portion sandwiched between processing steps S401 and S407 is repeatedly executed. In processing step S402, each piece of data is checked to distinguish between high priority data and non-high priority data, and high priority data is recorded as high in processing step S406. In processing step S403, it is determined whether data that is not high is medium or low, and in processing steps S405 and S404, preset processing is executed to set medium priority and low priority, respectively. Note that in the selection flow of FIG. 7, only data with a high priority is finally selected as data to be selected, but it is possible to adopt an appropriate way of thinking about how and where to select.

Next, a processing flow for rearranging data in the data selection unit 102 according to a command from the application execution unit 101 will be described with reference to FIG. In FIG. 8, when there is a data rearrangement processing request from the application execution unit 101 to the data selection unit 102, data search processing is executed in processing step S502, and the searched data is data to be rearranged in processing step S503. If it is the data to be sorted, the data is sorted in processing step S504, and then the data is returned to the application execution unit 101 in processing step S505. If it is not data, the data is returned to the application execution unit 101 as it is in processing step S505.

For example, if the priority definition information from the priority definition unit 106 defines that the distance is short, and the command from the application execution unit 101 requests the data, for example, the distance from the own vehicle is short. Perform processing for rearranging in order.

In the second embodiment, priority is given by the priority assigning unit 106 in FIG. Changing the cycle of data transferred from the data selection unit 102 to the application execution unit 101 according to the defined priority definition information DP will be described.

For example, in a situation where the data sensed by the external recognition sensor 108 includes a mixture of high-priority pedestrians crossing the vehicle's planned travel path and a large amount of stationary pedestrians at a pedestrian crossing, When the application execution unit 101 requests acquisition of pedestrian information, the data selection unit 102 confirms the priority of the corresponding pedestrian data managed by the data management unit 103, and selects only data with high priority from the application. It is sent to the execution unit 101 every cycle.

FIG. 9 shows a series of processes for manipulating the data transmission cycle when acquiring data in the data management unit 103 from the application execution unit 101 .

According to the processing flow of the data selection unit 102 shown in FIG. 9, first, in processing step S601, the database shown in FIG. In the processing flow of FIG. 9, the processing from processing step S601 to processing step S608 is repeated while updating data, so only specific data will be described in the following description. Judgment processing in processing step S603 is performed for the data whose priority has been confirmed, and if the priority 33 of the object 34 is high (YES), in processing step S607, the relationship between the priority and the data return method shown in FIG. data return processing 207 to the application execution unit 101 according to the above.

On the other hand, data with middle priority and data with low priority that are considered to have no effect on the own vehicle are given the priority shown in FIG. Whether or not the process can be executed is determined based on the number of cycles determined by the relationship between the frequency and the data return method.

If the value of the counter is equal to or greater than the threshold in processing step S604, the counter is reset in processing step S606, and data is returned to the application execution unit 101. However, if the predetermined number of cycles has not been reached, processing is performed. In step S605, only the counter is counted up, and data is not transmitted to the application execution unit 101. FIG. In this example, data is transferred to the application execution unit 101 once every five cycles to reduce the processing load on the application execution unit 101 .

Next, the processing of data requiring urgency that affects the running of the own vehicle will be described with reference to FIG. In FIG. 10, the upper part shows the flow of setting processing at the time of initialization, and the lower part shows the flow of processing data with a high degree of urgency in accordance with the contents of the initial settings.

First, the callback function registration processing sequence at the time of initialization will be described with reference to the upper part of FIG. Here, a callback is set from the application execution unit 101 to the data selection unit 102 . Furthermore, the data selection unit 102 performs callback setting for the priority setting unit 106 . Regarding the completion of the callback setting, the completion of setting is reported to the priority setting unit 106, the data selection unit 102, and the application execution unit 101 through the reverse route as indicated by the dotted line.

The flow of processing data with a high degree of urgency after the callback function registration processing is performed will be described in the lower part of FIG. 10 .

When the priority assigning unit 106 acquires information on an object with high urgency that may affect the running of the own vehicle or an object that may collide, the priority assigning unit 106 assigns a particularly high priority. Granted.

Based on the conditions of FIG. 3 defined in advance by the priority definition unit 105, if the data is data corresponding to an event, the data is not stored in the data management unit 103 from the priority assignment unit 106, and is set in advance. Calls the callback function of the selected data selection unit 102 .

Further, the data selection unit 102 called the callback function from the priority assignment unit 106 calls the callback function set by the application execution unit 101 . Thus, the application execution unit 101 that has received the notification of the event can process the data with high priority received prior to other data.

All of the embodiments of the present invention described above are, in short, a "priority assigning unit that assigns priority to data sensed according to the external environment and vehicle status, and a priority assigning unit that assigns priority to the data." a priority determination unit that changes and determines a priority; a data management unit that stores the data to which the priority has been assigned; an application execution unit; and a data selection unit for selecting data.

Of these, the data selection unit that selects data to be passed from the data management unit to the application execution unit performs processing including data selection from various viewpoints. From the point of view of processing including selection of these data, when data with different priorities exist in the data management unit, selection is made according to the priority definition and priority set in advance, or in order of priority. , in descending order or in order specified by the user, or when high priority data and low priority data are mixed, according to the priority of the data, the data management unit to the application execution unit It is to change the processing cycle of the data to be passed to, or to manipulate the return method of data with high priority according to the situation. In addition, the situation that is the condition for operating the data return method is event-driven, preferentially passing to the application execution part, sorting in order of priority and passing to the application, passing only high-priority data to the application, etc. is.

10: In-vehicle electronic control unit 101: Application execution unit 102: Data selection unit 103: Data management unit 104: Priority determination unit 105: Priority definition unit 106: Priority assignment unit 107: Data collection unit 108: External recognition sensor 109 : map information 110: inner world recognition sensor 111: external control device

Claims (14)

An electronic control device that gives priority to and processes the data after collecting data sensed by a plurality of sensors,
a data collection unit that collects data sensed by a plurality of sensors; a priority giving unit that gives priority to each object according to the external environment situation and the own vehicle situation to the data collected by the data collection unit; a priority determination unit that dynamically changes and determines the priority to be given to a data management unit that stores the data to which the priority is given; an application execution unit; and the data management unit according to the priority a data selection unit that selects data to be passed from to the application execution unit ;
The application execution unit normally designates the type of data to the data selection unit and executes processing using the data selected by the data selection unit,
The data selection unit selects data to be stored in the data management unit according to the designated data type and sends the data to the application execution unit. 1. An electronic control device , wherein data having a higher priority determined by said priority determination unit is sent to said application execution unit, prior to data stored in a data management unit. The electronic control device according to claim 1,
The data selection unit selects the data to be passed to the application execution unit according to a preset priority definition and the priority when the data having different priorities exist in the data management unit, and selects the data to be passed to the application execution unit. An electronic control device, characterized by: The electronic control device according to claim 1,
The data selection unit rearranges the data managed by the data management unit in order of priority, in order of low priority, or in order designated by a user, and transfers the data to the application execution unit. . The electronic control device according to claim 1,
The data selection unit changes a processing cycle of data transferred from the data management unit to the application execution unit according to the priority of the data when high priority data and low priority data are mixed. and electronic control unit. The electronic control device according to claim 1,
The electronic control device according to claim 1, wherein the data selection section operates a data return method for data having a high priority according to a situation. The electronic control device according to claim 1,
The external world situation is a moving object (can include vehicles, pedestrians, obstacles, etc. around the vehicle) or a static object (traffic light, sign , which may include obstacles, etc.). The electronic control device according to claim 1,
The priority is the external world situation, the internal world situation of the own vehicle, the trajectory prediction result, the tracking situation, the risk map, the moving speed of the target object, the target object type, the running situation of the own vehicle, and the sensed object. An electronic control device characterized by being set based on at least one of: a relative distance; The electronic control device according to claim 1,
The priority is an object that affects the running of the own vehicle, an object that is expected to affect the running of the own vehicle, an object that exists on the predicted trajectory of the own vehicle, a blind spot of the own vehicle, and a blind spot of the own vehicle. An electronic control device characterized by being set high for at least one of: The electronic control device according to claim 1,
The electronic control device, wherein the priority assigning unit assigns the priority determined by the priority determining unit to data and registers the data in the data managing unit. The electronic control device according to claim 1,
The priority determination unit determines the priority to be given according to at least one of the external world situation, the host vehicle situation, the trajectory prediction result processed by the application execution unit, and the tracking situation. electronic control unit. The electronic control device according to claim 1,
The electronic control device, wherein the data to which priority is given includes sensed data, time-series information of the data, processed information, and processed information based on a plurality of pieces of sensed data. The electronic control device according to claim 1,
The electronic control device obtains priority definition information for defining the priority from the outside after starting the electronic control device , and reflects it in the priority determination unit and the data selection unit. . The electronic control device according to claim 1,
Among the data to which priority is given, the data with the highest priority is directly given to the application execution unit via the data selection unit, and the data with relatively low priority is held in the data management unit. An electronic control device characterized by being The electronic control device according to claim 12 ,
The priority definition information for defining priority is, as sensed data, moving objects such as pedestrians, vehicles, bicycles, and motorcycles, and objects moving on paths and side roads, or static objects. When giving priority to at least one object information of signs, traffic lights, obstacles, roadside trees, and objects stationary on the course or on the side road, the resolution of priority, the conditions for giving priority, and the priority at least one of data processing means according to the electronic control unit.

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