Failure current measurement for electronic control module
AssigneeLear Corporation
InventorsKlaus-Dieter Grebner, Volker Marr
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method and system for assessing or otherwise determining defective operation of an electronic control unit (ECU). The ECU may be a vehicle or non-vehicle ECU having any number of modules configured to provide and/or support any number of operations. The defective ECU operations may be determined as a function of a voltage drop across a shunt included on the ECU.
Claims20
An electronic control unit (ECU) having a number of modules mounted on a printed circuit board (PCB), the PCB having a power bus and a ground bus, each of the modules being electrically connected in parallel between the power bus and the ground bus, the ECU comprising:
- an output for distributing current carried over the ground bus from the ECU, the current corresponding with total current flow through the modules;
- a shunt connected between the modules and the output;
- and
- a controller mounted on the PCB, the controller configured to assess defective ECU operations as a function of a voltage drop across the shunt.
A vehicular electronic control unit (ECU) having a number of modules for controlling vehicle related operations, each module being mounted on the same circuit board, the ECU comprising:
- an input for commonly distributing power from a vehicle battery to an input side of the modules;
- an output for commonly distributing current from an output side of the modules to a vehicle ground;
- a shunt connected between the modules and the output for use in measuring a voltage drop associated with total current flow through the modules, the shunt being mounted to the circuit board;
- and
- a comparator configured to assess defective module operations as a function of the voltage drop across the shunt, the comparator being mounted to the circuit board.
A method determining defective ECU operations for an ECU having a number of modules, the modules receiving current from a common input and outputting current to a common output, the method comprising:
- measuring a voltage drop across a shunt connected between the modules and the common output while each of the modules are operating in a sleep mode and while each of the modules are operating in an active mode;
- and
- comparing the voltage drop measurement taken during active mode to an active mode threshold;
- comparing the voltage drop measurement taken during sleep mode to a sleep mode threshold;
- and
- without specifically identifying a defective module, determining there to be at least the defective module in the event at least of the voltage drop measurements exceeds the compared to threshold.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.