Gear shifter to transmission interface and control sub-system

This invention relates to the communication sub-system for communication between a gear shifter and a smart vehicle transmission. The communication sub-system makes use of existing industry standard or proprietary communication protocols and communication spines replace translation encoders now currently used to facilitate gearshift commands to the electronic control modules of smart transmissions. Smart vehicle transmissions have come into use mostly in commercial applications. Such vehicles appropriate for such installation include light, medium, and heavy duty trucks. This application is related to pending application Ser. No. 09/447,132, filed Nov. 22, 1999 and assigned to inventor's assignee. A transmission and gearshift communication sub-system that includes a gearshift , a transmission and transmission controller , and a common data bus . The gearshift communicates with the transmission controller to change gears or mode of operation of the transmission for automatic transmissions over the common data bus. Such communication is by a standard communication protocol that may be the SAE J1939 protocol. Vehicle control system comprises an electrical system controller (ESC) , which is the primary component of a vehicle electronic control system. ESC manages a number of vocational controllers disposed on a vehicle and executes a load management program which oversees the total load imposed on the vehicle electrical system and power train by various accessories installed on the vehicle. Most active vehicle components are directly controlled by one of a group of autonomous, vocational controllers, which include a gauge cluster , an engine controller , a transmission controller , an auxiliary instrument and switch bank , an antilock brake system (ABS) controller , and the gearshift all of which are connected to ESC over the common data bus which may be a serial data bus or link