US 12,250,274 B2
Vehicle signal relay service
Roland Mesde, Cupertino, CA (US); Alex Bessonov, San Jose, CA (US); Brian Ewanchuk, Redmond, WA (US); George Sherif Kamal Hanna, Toronto (CA); and Nitin Giri, Bothell, WA (US)
Assigned to Amazon Technologies, Inc., Seattle, WA (US)
Filed by Amazon Technologies, Inc., Seattle, WA (US)
Filed on Mar. 29, 2023, as Appl. No. 18/192,351.
Prior Publication US 2024/0333802 A1, Oct. 3, 2024
Int. Cl. H04L 12/24 (2006.01); H04L 12/40 (2006.01); H04L 41/0803 (2022.01); H04L 67/125 (2022.01)
CPC H04L 67/125 (2013.01) [H04L 12/40 (2013.01); H04L 2012/40215 (2013.01); H04L 2012/40273 (2013.01)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A system for a vehicle, comprising:
a plurality of computing devices configured to implement a plurality of vehicle zone controllers in a plurality of zones of the vehicle, wherein the vehicle zone controllers respectively comprise respective relay agents, and wherein respective ones of the vehicle zone controllers are configured to send and receive information, using one or more link-layer communication protocols, to one or more electronic control units (ECUs) in a respective one of the plurality of zones via one or more communication buses connecting the respective vehicle zone controllers to the one or more ECUs;
a compute unit, wherein the compute unit is connected to the respective vehicle zone controllers via an ethernet bus using an ethernet link-layer protocol, and wherein the one or more link-layer communication protocols are incompatible with the ethernet link-layer protocol;
wherein the compute unit is configured to:
send a multicast message to the respective zone controllers in the plurality of zones, using the ethernet link-layer protocol, in response to a request from a software application for one or more sensor signals from the one or more ECUs, to discover a given relay agent of a given vehicle zone controller configured to send and receive information to the one or more ECUs using the one or more link-layer communication protocols, wherein the request from the software application is received at an application programming interface (API) implemented at the compute unit, and wherein the given vehicle controller is in a first zone of the plurality of zones and the compute unit is in a second zone of the plurality of zones;
wherein the given relay agent of the given vehicle zone controller in the first zone is configured to:
provide a discovery response, based on the multicast message, wherein the discovery response indicates that the given relay agent has access to the requested one or more sensor signals;
receive, based on discovery of the given relay agent, the request sent via the ethernet bus, wherein the request is for the one or more sensor signals from the one or more ECUs;
translate the one or more sensor signals from the one or more ECUs into a format compatible with the ethernet link-layer protocol; and
provide the one or more translated sensor signals for transmission to the software application in the compute unit.