Autonomy Safety Island Architecture With PMIC Fault Isolation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing automotive systems face challenges in meeting the stringent safety integrity requirements of ASIL-D for vehicle brakes and other critical components, particularly in Level 2 and Level 3 autonomy systems, where failures can have significant safety implications.
Innovation Solution
Implementing intelligent power supplies and redundant System-on-a-Chip (SOC) architectures with ASIL-D power management integrated circuits (PMICs) to monitor and isolate safety islands, ensuring fault detection and safe shutdown in case of failures, thereby reducing the need for high-integrity microcontrollers.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If ASIL-D grade microcontrollers are used to ensure highest safety integrity for critical systems, then system reliability is improved, but device complexity and cost increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system divides the autonomous vehicle control into separate domains: ASIL-D safety island for critical functions and ASIL-B domain for non-critical functions. This segmentation allows each domain to be optimized independently, with the safety island using minimal ASIL-D components only where absolutely necessary, rather than requiring ASIL-D microcontrollers for the entire system.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent extracts the safety-critical functions from the main ASIL-B domain and places them in a separate ASIL-D safety island. This extraction allows the majority of the system to operate with simpler ASIL-B components, while only the essential safety functions require the higher ASIL-D integrity level, thereby reducing overall complexity and cost.
2Reliability
If redundant SOCs and safety monitoring systems are implemented, then system reliability is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The PMIC serves as an intermediary monitoring component that watches the health status of the ASIL-D safety island and ASIL-B domain. Instead of implementing complex redundant systems, the PMIC provides a relatively simple monitoring mechanism that can detect faults and trigger safe shutdown procedures, achieving high reliability without proportionally increasing complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements self-monitoring capabilities where the PMIC continuously checks the operational status of critical components and can autonomously initiate safe shutdown sequences when faults are detected. This self-service approach to safety monitoring reduces the need for additional complex external monitoring systems.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods, systems, and apparatuses, among other things, as described herein may provide for using intelligent power supplies or redundant SOCs to meet safety integrity or availability for Level 2 or Level 3 autonomy systems.