Patent Publication Number: US-2023155858-A1

Title: Network routing device and method

Description:
TECHNICAL FIELD 
     Cross-reference to Related Applications 
     This application claims the benefit of Korean Patent Application No. 10-2020-0079600, filed on Jun. 29, 2020 in the Korean Intellectual Property Office, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein in its entirety by reference. 
     Technical Field 
     The present invention relates to a device and method for routing using an extended ID field in a CAN network. 
     BACKGROUND ART 
     In general, in the case of a Controller Area Network (CAN) network, it is possible to communicate with priority by occupying a communication BUS using an ID field of a frame. Nodes that are included in such a CAN network and share one bus classify the messages they need to receive through ID field filtering. 
     However, as each node of the CAN network is connected to one CAN communication bus, it is necessary to continuously process unnecessary messages. Therefore, it is not possible to accurately classify networks according to the characteristics or functions of each device. In addition, as the number of nodes increases, there is a limit in that a bus for CAN communication must be continuously connected. 
     Meanwhile, in the case of CAN 2.0b, which is one of the communication protocols of the CAN network, more messages can be registered and used through the extended ID field of the frame. However, the CAN 2.0b and the existing CAN 2.0a have a different frame structure and thus are not compatible with each other. 
     DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION 
     Technical Problem 
     The present invention has been devised to solve the above problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide a network routing device and method in which by using the ID field of the CAN network frame as a routing target network designation, a plurality of nodes can transmit messages at the same time in a physically separated network and routing target message, and message IDs can be reused. 
     Technical Solution 
     A network routing device according to an embodiment of the present invention, as a routing device for transmitting a frame between nodes connected to different communication networks of a plurality of communication networks, includes a routing processing unit configured to determine a second network that is a routing target among the plurality of communication networks based on frame information received from a first network transmitting a frame among the plurality of communication networks, and a frame conversion unit configured to convert the frame to be compatible with the second network. 
     A communication node according to an embodiment of the present invention, as a communication node configured to be connectable to a plurality of communication networks and configured to transmit a frame between nodes connected to different communication networks of the plurality of communication networks, includes a network routing device configured to determine a second network that is a routing target among the plurality of communication networks and convert a frame to be compatible with the second network based on information of the frame received from a first network transmitting the frame among the plurality of communication networks, a first communication module configured to support a communication protocol used in the first network and receive the frame from a node connected to the first network, and a second communication module configured to support a communication protocol used in the second network and transmit a frame received from the first network to the second network. 
     A network routing method according to an embodiment of the present invention, as a routing method for transmitting a frame between nodes connected to different communication networks of a plurality of communication networks, includes determining a second network that is a routing target among the plurality of communication networks based on frame information received from a first network transmitting a frame among the plurality of communication networks; and converting the frame to be compatible with the second network. 
     Effects of the Invention 
     According to the network routing device and method of the present invention, by utilizing a specific field of the CAN network frame as a routing target network designation and routing target message, a plurality of nodes can simultaneously transmit messages in a physically separated network, and message IDs can be reused. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         FIG.  1    is a block diagram showing the configuration of a general battery control system. 
         FIG.  2    is a block diagram showing the configuration of a network routing device according to an embodiment of the present invention. 
         FIG.  3    is a block diagram showing the configuration of a communication node according to an embodiment of the present invention. 
         FIG.  4 A  is a diagram illustrating an operation of a network routing device according to an embodiment of the present invention. 
         FIG.  4 B  is a diagram illustrating a structure of a frame used in a network routing device according to an embodiment of the present invention. 
         FIG.  5    is a flowchart illustrating a network routing method according to an embodiment of the present invention. 
         FIG.  6    is a diagram illustrating a hardware configuration of a network routing device according to an embodiment of the present invention. 
     
    
    
     MODES FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION 
     Hereinafter, various embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. In this document, the same reference numerals are used for the same components in the drawings, and duplicate descriptions of the same components are omitted. 
     For the various embodiments of the present invention disclosed in this document, specific structural or functional descriptions have been exemplified for the purpose of describing the embodiments of the present invention only and various embodiments of the present invention may be implemented in various forms and should not be construed as being limited to the embodiments described in this document. 
     Expressions such as “first”, “second”, “first”, or “second” used in various embodiments may modify various elements regardless of their order and/or importance, and do not limit the corresponding elements. For example, without departing from the scope of the present invention, a first component may be referred to as a second component, and similarly, a second component may be renamed and referred to as a first component. 
     Terms used in this document are only used to describe a specific embodiment and may not be intended to limit the scope of other embodiments. The terms of a singular form may include plural forms unless otherwise specified. 
     All terms used herein, including technical or scientific terms, may have the same meaning as commonly understood by a person of ordinary skill in the art. Terms defined in a commonly used dictionary may be interpreted as having the same or similar meaning as the meaning in the context of the related technology, and are not interpreted as ideal or excessively formal meanings unless explicitly defined in this document. In some cases, even terms defined in this document cannot be interpreted to exclude embodiments of the present invention. 
       FIG.  1    is a block diagram showing the configuration of a general battery control system. 
     Referring to  FIG.  1   , it schematically shows a battery control system including a battery pack  1  and an upper-level controller  2  included in an upper-level system according to an embodiment of the present invention. 
     As shown in  FIG.  1   , the battery pack  1  includes a battery module  10  consisting of one or more battery cells and capable of charging and discharging, a switching unit  14  connected in series to the + terminal side or the − terminal side of the battery module  10  to control the charge/discharge current flow of the battery module  10 , and a battery management system  20  for controlling and managing the voltage, current, temperature, and the like of the battery pack  1  to prevent overcharging and overdischarging. 
     Here, the switching unit  14  is a semiconductor switching element for controlling the current flow for charging or discharging of the battery module  10 , and for example, at least one MOSFET, or a relay, a magnetic contactor, and the like may be used according to the specifications of the battery pack  1 . 
     In addition, in order to monitor the voltage, current, temperature, etc. of the battery pack  1 , the BMS  20  may measure or calculate a voltage and a current of a gate, a source, and a drain of a semiconductor switching device. In addition, the BMS  20  may measure the current, voltage, temperature, etc. of the battery pack using the sensor  12  provided adjacent to the semiconductor switching element. The BMS  20  is an interface for receiving values obtained by measuring the above-described various parameters, and may include a plurality of terminals and a circuit connected to these terminals to process input values. 
     In addition, the BMS  20  may control ON/OFF of the switching unit  14 , for example, a MOSFET, and may be connected to the battery module  10  to monitor the state of the battery module  10 . 
     The upper-level controller  2  may transmit a control signal for the battery module to the BMS  20 . Accordingly, the operation of the BMS  20  may be controlled based on a signal applied from the upper-level controller. The battery cell of the present invention may be included in a battery pack used for an Energy Storage System (ESS) or a vehicle. And in this case, the upper-level controller  2  may be an ESS controller or a vehicle controller. However, the battery pack  1  is not limited to this use. 
     Since the configuration of the battery pack  1  and the configuration of the BMS  20  are known configurations, a more detailed description will be omitted. 
       FIG.  2    is a block diagram showing the configuration of a network routing device according to an embodiment of the present invention. 
     Referring to  FIG.  2   , the network routing device  200  according to an embodiment of the present invention may include a routing processing unit  210  and a frame conversion unit  220 . 
     Network routing device  200  according to an embodiment of the present invention may be a device for routing a plurality of communication networks for transmitting and receiving a frame having a structure including a first part including information for specifying a routing target network and a second part including a routing target message between each node. That is, in the network routing device according to an embodiment of the present invention, the extended ID field of the CAN frame may be divided into subfields to be used as a routing target network designation and a routing target message. 
     In addition, a plurality of communication networks communicating through the network routing device  200  according to an embodiment of the present invention may be physically separated from each other, and each communication network may use the CAN protocol. In this case, the plurality of communication networks may be any one of a CAN 2.0a or a CAN 2.0b bus. As such, since a plurality of communication networks are physically separated in the form of a CAN bus, a plurality of nodes connected to different communication networks can simultaneously transmit messages within the network. Also, since the network is separated, the message ID can be used as it is. 
     The routing processing unit  210  may determine a communication network (a second network), that is a routing target, among a plurality of communication networks based on the information of the frame received from the communication network (first network) transmitting the frame. In this case, the routing processing unit  210  may determine a routing target network among a plurality of communication networks based on the information of the above-described first part of the CAN frame. In addition, the first part and the second part of the CAN frame may be included in an Extended ID (EID) field or a Standard ID (SID) field of the frame, and each of the first part and the second part may have a preset number of bits. 
     Meanwhile, a reserved field of the CAN frame used in the routing processing unit  210  may include information indicating whether to route to one communication network among a plurality of communication networks. For example, the reserved field may indicate 1 if the received frame is a routing target, and may indicate 0 if it is not a routing target. The routing processing unit  210  may determine whether the frame is routed to another network based on the reserved field of the frame. 
     The frame conversion unit  220  may convert a frame to be compatible with the routing target network when the communication protocols of the frame transmission network and the routing target network are different from each other. For example, when the communication protocol of the frame transmission network is CAN 2.0b and the communication protocol of the routing target network is CAN 2.0a, the frame conversion unit  220  may copy and transmit at least a part of the extended ID field of the frame (e.g., the routing target message) to the standard ID field of the CAN 2.0a frame of the routing target network. 
     Meanwhile, although not shown in  FIG.  2   , the network routing device  200  according to an embodiment of the present invention may include a storage unit. Since the memory unit may store routing target network information, routing target message, routing designator information, etc. of a received or transmitted frame, it allows the user to check frame information or history as needed. In addition, the storage unit may not be included in the routing device  200 , but may be included in the communication node  300  to be described later. 
       FIG.  3    is a block diagram showing the configuration of a communication node according to an embodiment of the present invention. 
     Referring to  FIG.  3   , the communication node  300  according to an embodiment of the present invention is for transmitting and receiving frames between each node by a plurality of communication networks, and may include a network routing device  310 , a first communication module  320 , and a second communication module  330 . 
     The network routing device  310  may determine a communication network that is a routing target among a plurality of communication networks based on the frame information received from the communication network transmitting the frame, and convert the frame to be compatible with the routing target network. Here, since the network routing device  310  is substantially the same as the network routing device  200  of  FIG.  2   , a detailed description thereof will be omitted. 
     The first communication module  320  may receive a frame from a frame transmission network. The first communication module  320  communicates with a plurality of nodes connected to the first network. The first communication module  320  may support a first communication protocol used in the first network. For example, the first communication module  320  may support the CAN protocol and transmit/receive a frame in a corresponding network through a plurality of data lines constituting the CAN bus. 
     The first communication module  320  transmits the frame received from the first network to the network routing device  310  based on information on a field indicating whether routing is performed in the received frame. For example, information indicating whether to route to one communication network among a plurality of communication networks may be included in the reserved field of the received frame. In addition, the first communication module  320  may transmit the received frame to the network routing device  310  based on the information of the reserved field, or transmit the received frame to a control unit (not shown) of the communication node  300  to process the frame, or ignore the received frame. 
     The second communication module  330  may transmit the frame received from the frame transmission network to the routing target network. The second communication module  330  communicates with a plurality of nodes connected to the second network. The second communication module  330  may support a second communication protocol used in the second network. For example, the second communication module  330  may support the CAN protocol and transmit/receive a frame in a corresponding network through a plurality of data lines constituting the CAN bus. 
     The frame transmitted to the second network by the second communication module  330  includes a routing target message included in the frame when transmitted from the first network, and based on this, the node corresponding to the message in the second network may receive the frame. 
       FIG.  4 A  is a diagram illustrating an operation of a network routing device according to an embodiment of the present invention. Also,  FIG.  4 B  is a diagram illustrating a structure of a frame used in a network routing device according to an embodiment of the present invention. In  FIG.  4 B , the left side shows the frame structure of CAN 2.0b, which is a frame transmission network, and the right side shows the frame structure of CAN 2.0a, which is a routing target network. 
     Referring to  FIG.  4 A , networks No.  1  to No.  4  transmit and receive frames through the network routing device of the present invention. As shown in  FIG.  4 A , network No. 1 is a battery BMS node of the CAN network, network No. 2 is a power supply Motor AUX node, and networks No. 3 and 4 are control ECU SUB nodes. 
     If, in  FIG.  4 A , a frame is transmitted from network No. 1, which is a CAN 2.0b bus, to network No.2, which is a CAN 2.0a bus, the network routing device first checks the reserved field in the CAN frame. As in the left frame structure of  FIG.  4 B , when information included in the reserve frame RO is 1, a frame including an extended ID field EID as a routing target frame is transmitted to the routing processing unit  210 . At this time, the information included in the reserve frame RO is not limited to 1 or 0 as shown in  FIG.  4 B  and may be expressed in various ways. 
     Next, the routing processing unit  210  selects a routing target network with reference to the extended ID field of the received frame. In this case, the routing target network may be determined based on a predetermined number of bits (e.g., upper 6 bits) of the extension ID field. For example, when network No.2 is the routing target network, the upper 6 bits of the extended ID field may be expressed as [000010] as shown in  FIG.  4 B . 
     After determining the routing target network in the routing processing unit  210 , the network routing device transmits a message to the routing target network. In this case, the transmitted message may be the remaining part (second part) except for the target network designation part (first part) in the extended ID field of the frame. That is, as shown in  FIG.  4 B , the message of the transmitted frame may be expressed by the number of 11 bits of [11010101001], and may be used to identify the message and indicate the priority. 
     However, in the present invention, the number of bits for designating the routing target network and the number of bits for the routing target message are not limited thereto, and may be set arbitrarily by a user as needed. 
     If network No.2 is CAN 2.0a, the frame conversion unit  220  converts the frame to be compatible with CAN 2.0a. For example, the routing target message part (11 bits) of the CAN 2.0b frame of  FIG.  4 B  may be copied and transmitted to the standard ID field of the CAN 2.0a frame, which is the routing target network. On the other hand, if the frame transmission network is CAN 2.0a and the routing target network is CAN 2.0b, the message of the standard ID field of the CAN 2.0a frame may be copied and transmitted to the standard ID field or the extended ID field of the CAN 2.0b frame. 
     In such a way, according to the network routing device according to an embodiment of the present invention, even when the frame structure is different from each other due to different communication protocols (e.g., CAN 2.0a and CAN 2.0b) by utilizing the ID field of the frame structure, frames can be transmitted without a separate device or application. 
       FIG.  5    is a flowchart illustrating a network routing method according to an embodiment of the present invention. 
     Referring to  FIG.  5   , first, the reserved field of the frame received from the network routing device is checked (S 110 ). In this case, the reserved field of the CAN frame may include information indicating whether to route to the target network. For example, the reserved field may indicate  1  if the received frame is a routing target, and may indicate  0  if it is not a routing target. Accordingly, the network routing device of the present invention may determine whether the frame is routed to another network based on the reserved field of the frame. 
     Then, it is determined whether the frame received by the network routing device is a routing target (S 120 ). If the received frame is not a routing target (NO) , it is processed in the same way as the frame transmission network (S 130 ). 
     On the other hand, if the received frame is a routing target (YES), a routing target network is determined by checking the extended ID field of the frame (S 140 ). In this case, the routing target network information of the extension ID field may be indicated by a preset number of upper bits (e.g.,  6  bits). 
     Next, it is determined whether the communication protocols of the frame transmission network and the routing target network are the same (S 150 ). If the communication protocols of the frame transmission network and the routing target network are the same, the frame is transmitted to the routing target network as it is (S 170 ). 
     On the other hand, when the communication protocols of the frame transmission network and the routing target network are different (NO), the frame is converted to be compatible with the routing target network (S 160 ). For example, if the routing target network is CAN 2.0a and the frame transmission network is CAN 2.0b, the routing target message in the extended ID field of the frame can be copied into the standard ID field of the CAN 2.0a frame of the routing target network. Then, the converted frame is transmitted to the routing target network (S 170 ). 
     As such, according to the network routing method according to an embodiment of the present invention, by using the ID field of the CAN network frame as a routing target network designation and routing target message, a plurality of nodes can simultaneously transmit messages in a physically separated network, and message IDs can be reused. 
       FIG.  6    is a diagram illustrating a hardware configuration of a network routing device according to an embodiment of the present invention. 
     Referring to  FIG.  6   , the battery management system  600  may include a microcontroller (MCU)  610  for controlling various processes and each configuration, a memory  620  on which an operating system program and various programs (e.g., a routing target network calculation program, a frame conversion program, etc.) are recorded, an input interface between a battery cell module and/or a semiconductor switching element, an input/output interface  630  that provides an output interface, and a communication interface  640  capable of communicating with the outside through a wired/wireless communication network. In this way, the computer program according to the present invention may be recorded in the memory  620  and processed by the microcontroller  610 , and for example, may be implemented as a module that performs each functional block shown in  FIG.  2   . 
     In the above, even if all the components constituting the embodiments of the present invention are described as being combined into one or operating in combination, the present invention is not necessarily limited to these embodiments. That is, within the scope of the object of the present invention, all of the constituent elements may be selectively combined and operated in one or more. 
     In addition, terms such as “include”, “consist of” or “have” described above mean that the corresponding constituent components can be present unless otherwise stated, and it should be construed that other components may be further included rather than excluding other components. All terms, including technical or scientific terms, have the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skill in the art, unless otherwise defined. Terms commonly used, such as terms defined in the dictionary, should be interpreted as being consistent with the meaning of the context of the related technology, and unless explicitly defined in the present invention, they are not interpreted in an ideal or excessively formal sense. 
     The above description is merely illustrative of the technical idea of the present invention, and those of ordinary skill in the art to which the present invention pertains will be able to make various modifications and variations without departing from the essential characteristics of the present invention. 
     Therefore, the embodiments disclosed in the present invention are not intended to limit the technical idea of the present invention, but to explain, and the scope of the technical idea of the present invention is not limited by these embodiments. The scope of protection of the present invention should be interpreted by the claims below, and all technical ideas within the scope equivalent thereto should be construed as being included in the scope of the present invention.