On-vehicle electronic device control system

An on-vehicle electronic device control system including a base device layer on which a plurality of base inputting devices and a plurality of base driven devices are disposed, a plurality of hierarchical control layers which are disposed higher than the base device layer and each of which includes a plurality of control units, wherein:

• each of the control units disposed on a first one of the control layers has a lower-to-higher-layer control-command data input portion for inputting data from a layer that is lower than the first one of the control layers and a higher-to-lower-layer control-command data output portion for outputting control-command data to a layer that is lower than said one layer;
• at least one of the control units disposed on a second one of the control layers has a higher-to-lower-layer control-command data input portion for inputting data from a layer that is higher than the second one of the control layers;
• at least one of the control units disposed on a third one of the control layers has a lower-to-higher-layer control-command data output portion for outputting data to a layer that is higher than the third one of the control layers;
• and
• one of the control units that has the higher-to-lower-layer control-command data input portion functions as a coordinative control-command unit that determines data to be outputted from the higher-to-lower-layer control-command data output portion thereof based on both data inputted to the higher-to-lower-layer control-command data input portion thereof and data inputted to the lower-to-higher-layer control-command data input portion thereof, and also functions as an autonomous control command unit that determines data to be outputted from the higher-to-lower-layer control-command data output portion thereof based only on the data inputted to the lower-to-higher-layer control-command data input portion thereof if the data to be inputted to the higher-to-lower-layer control-command data input portion thereof are stopped;
• wherein
• the coordinative control-command unit includes an arbitration unit that exclusively arbitrates to give a priority to one of the higher-to-lower-layer control-command data and the lower-to-higher-layer control-command data according to a preset arbitration rule if the higher-to-lower-layer control-command data and the lower-to-higher-layer control-command data compete with each other;
• if base device control-command data and lower-to-higher-layer control-command data compete with each other, the arbitration unit gives a priority to the base device control-command data to be inputted to the control unit that controls the base-driven devices;
• first one of the control units disposed on a control layer disposed next to the base device layer, the base inputting devices and the base driven device that are disposed on the base device layer form a base function system;
• second one of the control units disposed on layers next to the control layer on which the first one of the control units is disposed receive, via at least one of the lower-to-higher-layer control-command data input portions, distributed data of the base control input data that are inputted from one of the base inputting devices to the first one of the control units and distributed data of the base control-command data that are outputted to the base driven devices to form an automatic control unit that monitors an operating condition of base function system according to the above two distributed data;
• the automatic control unit provides the first one of the control units with automatic control-command data as the higher-to-lower-layer control-command data when the operating condition meets a preset condition;
• and
• the base function system and the automatic control unit form an automatic expanded function system that determines to output the base control-command data only based on the base control-command data if the automatic control-command data inputted to the first one of the control units stop due to malfunction of any of the automatic control units.