Patent ID: 8463489

Claim:
A diagnostic information collection apparatus comprising: a plurality of abnormality detection sections, each of which corresponds respectively to a diagnostic object in a vehicle in order to detect an abnormality on the diagnostic object; and a memory, wherein each abnormality detection section includes: an abnormality occurrence determination unit that determines whether an abnormality occurs on a corresponding diagnostic object such that the abnormality occurrence determination unit checks whether the corresponding diagnostic object satisfies an abnormality determination condition; an abnormality confirming unit that confirms the corresponding diagnostic object to be abnormal when the number of abnormality determinations is equal to or larger than an abnormality confirmation threshold, the number of abnormality determinations being defined by frequency of determinations when the abnormality occurrence determination unit determines that the abnormality occurs on the corresponding diagnostic object; a normality conforming unit that determines whether the corresponding diagnostic object satisfies a normality determination condition and confirms the corresponding diagnostic object to be normal when the number of normality determinations is equal to or larger than a normality confirmation threshold, the number of normality determinations being defined by frequency of determinations when the normality confirming unit determines that the corresponding diagnostic object satisfies the normality determination condition; a state information generation unit that determines whether an abnormality decision is in progress and generates state information indicative of a determination result whether the abnormality decision is in progress, wherein a determination that the abnormality decision is in progress denotes a state in which the abnormality occurrence determination unit determines the abnormality occurrence but both of the abnormality confirming unit and the normality confirming unit do not confirm whether the corresponding diagnostic object is normal or abnormal; and an abnormality-related information processing unit that controls the memory to store identification information about the corresponding diagnostic object as abnormality location information when the abnormality occurrence determination unit determine the abnormality occurrence on the corresponding diagnostic object at a first time, specifies another abnormality detection section having state information indicative of abnormality decision in progress, and controls the memory to store identification information about a respective diagnostic object of the specified another abnormality detection section as abnormality-related information in association with the abnormality location information.