Patent ID: 7729827

Claim:
A vehicle control system having a plurality of nodes connected to a communication network to perform coordinated operations based on data transmitted via said communication network for controlling a vehicle, wherein each of the nodes comprises: a node status determination section which receives node status data from other nodes via said communication network and determines node statuses which indicate one or more failed states and non-failed states of said plurality of nodes; a node status data exchanging section for transmitting node status data including node statuses of an own node and said other nodes determined by said node status determination section to said other nodes, and receiving node status data including node statuses of said own node and said other nodes determined and transmitted from said other nodes via said communication network; and a failed-node judging section which identifies a failed node connected to said communication network based on said node status data including node statuses of said own node and said other nodes determined by said node status determination section and transmitted from said other nodes, wherein the operations in said node status determination section, said node status data exchanging section and said failed-node judging section are executed in synchronization with communications between the own node and said other nodes via said communication network, wherein said node status determination section, said node status data exchanging section, and said failed-node judging section are implemented with a middleware including an application program interface which provides the identified result of the failed node to application programs, and wherein said own node executes a judging operation of identifying the failed node for a part of the nodes assigned to said own node among said plurality of nodes.