INCORPORATION BY REFERENCE

The present application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. § 119 to Japanese Patent Application No. 2019-049705 filed on Mar. 18, 2019. The content of the application is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to a vehicle control device.

Description of the Related Art

In the related art, an automatic stopping device that automatically stops a traveling vehicle in response to urgency information has been proposed (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2017-52429, for example).

The aforementioned automatic stopping device determines a degree of urgency in accordance with details of the urgency information and decides a time before the vehicle provided with the automatic stopping device is to be automatically stopped at the time of urgency on the basis of the degree of urgency, peripheral information of the vehicle provided with the automatic stopping device, and information related to a state of the vehicle provided with the automatic stopping device.

In a case in which the traveling vehicle is automatically stopped as a countermeasure at the time of urgency in a manner of the aforementioned automatic stopping device in the related art, it is necessary for power supply from a battery mounted in the vehicle to continue until the vehicle automatically stops. Therefore, there is a disadvantage that if the power supplied from the battery is insufficient due to a failure of the battery, a specific function such as automatic stopping is not able to operate during traveling of the vehicle.

The invention was made in view of the aforementioned background, and an object is to provide a vehicle control device that prevents a specific function of a traveling vehicle from being not able to operate due to a failure of a battery.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

According to an aspect for achieving the aforementioned object, there is provided a vehicle control device that controls operations of a vehicle provided with a battery and a vehicle system using power supplied from the battery and the vehicle control device has a CPU including: a control section configured to execute predetermined function control of causing a predetermined function of the vehicle system to operate; a discharge performance determination section configured to determine whether or not the battery is able to discharge a predetermined amount of current in accordance with the predetermined function before the control section starts the predetermined function control; and an execution availability determination section configured to permit the control section to execute the predetermined function control when the discharge performance determination section determines that the battery is able to discharge the predetermined amount of current and inhibit the control section from executing the predetermined function control when the discharge performance determination section determines that the battery is not able to discharge the predetermined amount of current.

The aforementioned vehicle control device may be configured such that the predetermined function is an automatic driving function, the predetermined amount of current is an amount of current required by the vehicle system to execute vehicle stopping control of causing the vehicle to stop when a predetermined driving stopping condition is satisfied during traveling of the vehicle using automatic driving based on the automatic driving function, and the battery is provided in the vehicle to execute the vehicle stopping control.

The aforementioned vehicle control device may be configured to further the CPU include: a power supply source state recognition section configured to recognize a state of a power supply source that supplies power required to drive the vehicle and may be configured such that as the driving stopping condition, a condition that the power supply source state recognition section recognizes that the power supply source is not able to continue the power supply or a condition that a situation in which the power supply source state recognition section is not able to recognize the state of the power supply source continues for a first determination time or longer is set.

The aforementioned vehicle control device may be configured such that the discharge performance determination section determines whether or not the battery is able to discharge the predetermined amount of current by conducting a discharge test in which the battery is actually caused to discharge.

The aforementioned vehicle control device may be configured such that the execution availability determination section permits the execution of the predetermined function control after the battery is charged until a remaining capacity reaches a first predetermined remaining capacity or more when the discharge performance determination section determines that the battery is able to discharge the predetermined amount of current.

The aforementioned vehicle control device may be configured such that the discharge performance determination section starts to charge the battery up to a second predetermined remaining capacity when the vehicle is activated and starts to determine whether or not the battery is able to discharge the predetermined amount of current after the charging of the battery up to the second predetermined remaining capacity is completed. Here, the first predetermined remaining capacity may be the same as the second predetermined remaining capacity.

The aforementioned vehicle control device may be configured to further the CPU include: a first elapsed time measurement section configured to measure a first elapsed time that is an elapsed time after the discharge performance determination section determines that the battery is able to discharge the predetermined amount of current and may be configured such that the execution availability determination section permits the control section to execute the predetermined function control without causing the discharge performance determination section to determine whether or not the battery is able to discharge the predetermined amount of current when the first elapsed time is less than a second determination time, and determines whether or not to permit the control section to execute the predetermined function control on the basis of a result of causing the discharge performance determination section to determine whether or not the battery is able to discharge the predetermined amount of current when the first elapsed time is equal to or greater than the second determination time.

The aforementioned vehicle control device may be configured to further the CPU include: a stopping vehicle discharge amount measurement section configured to measure a stopping vehicle discharge amount that is an amount of discharge from the battery after a timing at which the vehicle stops when the vehicle stops and may be configured such that the execution availability determination section permits the control section to execute the predetermined function control without causing the discharge performance determination section to determine whether or not the battery is able to discharge the predetermined amount of current when the stopping vehicle discharge amount is less than a determination current amount, and determines whether or not to permit the control section to execute the predetermined function control on the basis of a result of causing the discharge performance determination section to determine whether or not the battery is able to discharge the predetermined amount of current when the stopping vehicle discharge amount is equal to or greater than the determination current amount.

The aforementioned vehicle control device may be configured to further the CPU include: a second elapsed time measurement section configured to measure a second elapsed time that is an elapsed time after a timing at which the vehicle stops when the vehicle stops and may be configured such that the execution availability determination section permits the control section to execute the predetermined function control without causing the discharge performance determination section to determine whether or not the battery is able to discharge the predetermined amount of current when the second elapsed time is less than a third determination time, and determines whether or not to permit the control section to execute the predetermined function control on the basis of a result of causing the discharge performance determination section to determine whether or not the battery is able to discharge the predetermined amount of current when the second elapsed time is equal to or greater than the third determination time.

Here, “stopping of the vehicle” includes not only simple stopping of traveling but also stopping of operations of a control system in the vehicle such as turning-off of an ignition.

The aforementioned vehicle control device may be configured such that the automatic driving is automatic driving in a level that is performed in a state in which a driver of the vehicle releases hands from a steering operation section of the vehicle.

According to the aforementioned vehicle control device, the discharge performance determination section determines that the battery is not able to discharge the predetermined amount of current in a case in which penetration short-circuit, in which both negative and positive pole plates of the battery are short circuited, or the like has occurred due to over-discharge of the battery that accompanies long-term leaving of the vehicle and discharge performance of the battery has been degraded. Also, the execution availability determination section inhibits the control section from executing the predetermined function control. In this manner, it is possible to prevent the predetermined function control from being started in a state in which the predetermined amount of current is not able to be discharged due to a failure of the battery and to prevent the vehicle system that requires supply of the predetermined amount of current from being not able to operate during execution of the predetermined function control.

