Method and apparatus for controlling a safety-relevant process, and vehicle

Abstract

The invention relates to a hardware architecture for controlling a safety-relevant process. At least two microcontrollers 250, 350 are utilized for controlling the process in at least two control branches, wherein the respective microcontrollers 250, 350 are designed to control the safety-relevant process. This is therefore a redundant system. In a method, the microcontrollers 250, 350 process thedata from at least one sensor 276, 376, which detects the actual characteristic of the respective control branch. Between the two microcontrollers 250, 350, the data of the respective sensor 276, 376are exchanged, and in a decision module 258, 358 provided for each microcontroller 250, 350, a check is made to determine whether the data from the sensors 276, 376 are consistent. In response to aninconsistency being detected, a majority decision is made and a model value used in forming the majority decision, is calculated in the microcontroller 250, 350 based on control commands so the control of the safety-relevant process by the microcontroller 250, 350 of the control branch, whose data were detected as erroneous in the majority decision, is disabled. Third sensors that would otherwisehave to be used for check can be saved by calculating model parameters.

Description

technical field [0001] The invention relates to a method and a device for controlling a safety-relevant process, as well as a vehicle. Background technique [0002] In today's vehicles, electromechanical steering systems ( figure 1 ). If a fault occurs in these electrical components of the steering system during operation, the power steering is switched off or reduced. The driver then has to use a greater expenditure of power to steer the vehicle. [0003] In the near future, autonomous driving systems are used in vehicles, which allow the driver not to be permanently busy with the driving task and to perform other activities (reading, sleeping, writing messages...) while the driving system is active. The driver is therefore no longer available for the steering system as a backup in the event of a failure. Therefore, a steering system used in conjunction with an automated driving system must also be able to guide the vehicle and adjust the movement on the rack after a fa...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

[0013] The challenge in this architecture is that the identified fault must be discriminated against with quantifiable safety itself

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