Vehicle data gathering apparatus, and vehicle data gathering method

A vehicle data collecting method in which a vehicle data collecting apparatus connected externally to an intravehicular network to which a plurality of electronic control units, hereinafter referred to as ECUs, are connected in a vehicle, transmits a plurality of data request signals for requesting driving parameter data representing operating states of various components of the vehicle while the vehicle is being driven, to at least one of the ECUs, receives driving parameter data in response to the data request signals, and stores the received driving parameter data in a storage unit, the vehicle data collecting method comprising:

• a bus usage rate detecting step of detecting a bus usage rate of the intravehicular network by the vehicle data collecting apparatus connected to the intravehicular network;
• a selecting and setting step of selecting and setting the data request signals to be transmitted from the vehicle data collecting apparatus to the at least one of the ECUs;
• a transmission interval setting step of setting equal transmission intervals in a predetermined period with respect to each of the data request signals based on the number of the data request signals set by the selecting and setting step;
• and
• a request signal transmitting step of transmitting the data request signals at the equal transmission intervals if the bus usage rate is judged as being smaller than a first threshold value.

A vehicle data collecting method for collecting intravehicular data for use in a vehicle diagnosis that is at least one of a fault diagnosis, a checkup, and a driving skill diagnosis to be performed externally on a vehicle having an intravehicular network to which a plurality of electronic control units, hereinafter referred to as ECUs, are connected, the vehicle data collecting method comprising:

• an item setting step of setting a diagnostic item to be diagnosed by an external diagnosing machine;
• a request signal identifying step of identifying data request signals with respect to a plurality of items for requesting any of the ECUs for the intravehicular data about the plurality of items corresponding to the diagnostic item;
• a data requesting step of transmitting a plurality of the data request signals with respect to the plurality of items to at least one of the ECUs from the external diagnosing machine or a vehicle-mounted link which operates in response to a command from the external diagnosing machine;
• an intravehicular data transmitting step of transmitting a plurality of the intravehicular data from each of the ECUs which have received the data request signals to the external diagnosing machine or the vehicle-mounted link;
• and
• an intravehicular data storing step of storing the intravehicular data which have been received directly from the ECUs or the intravehicular data which have been received through the vehicle-mounted link, in the external diagnosing machine;
• wherein the data requesting step comprises:
• a transmission interval setting step of setting transmission intervals for the data request signals with respect to the plurality of items which are identified depending on the diagnostic item;
• a bus usage rate detecting step of detecting a bus usage rate of the intravehicular network;
• a bus usage judging step of judging whether the bus usage rate is smaller than a first threshold value or not;
• and
• a request signal transmitting step of transmitting the data request signals at the transmission intervals if the bus usage rate is judged as being smaller than the first threshold value;
• and
• wherein the transmission interval setting step sets the transmission intervals for transmitting the data request signals with respect to the plurality of items at equal intervals in a data collecting period which is a period established to acquire each piece of the intravehicular data with respect to the plurality of items.