Autonomous Vehicle Remote Command Whitelisting for Secure Diagnostics
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing autonomous vehicles face challenges in maintaining their production-ready status during maintenance and diagnostic operations, as unrestricted remote access can compromise the vehicle's configuration and certification, and transitioning between development and production modes is cumbersome.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a security-reviewed, whitelisted remote interface that provides preconfigured commands through a gRPC service, restricting access to a subset of commands and using mTLS for secure communication, ensuring that technicians can perform diagnostics without compromising the vehicle's production status.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If unrestricted remote access is provided to the AV controller, then technicians can perform comprehensive diagnostics and maintenance operations, but the vehicle's production-ready status and configuration integrity are compromised
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the command interface by creating a whitelist of approved commands that technicians can execute remotely. This segmentation separates permitted diagnostic operations from prohibited configuration changes, allowing comprehensive diagnostics within safety boundaries while preserving production status integrity.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary layer (the command whitelist mechanism) between the remote technician and the AV controller. This intermediary filters and validates commands before execution, enabling remote access while blocking any operations that would compromise production status, thus resolving the contradiction between accessibility and reliability.
2Adaptability or versatility
If the AV transitions between development and production modes, then full access commands are available during development, but the transition process is cumbersome and time-consuming
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by pre-configuring a whitelist of commands that are safe to execute in production mode. This eliminates the need for time-consuming mode transitions, as technicians can immediately access necessary diagnostic commands without switching between development and production modes, thus reducing transition time while maintaining command flexibility.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates a dynamic command interface where the whitelist can be configured to provide different levels of access based on operational context. This dynamic approach allows the system to adapt command availability to specific diagnostic needs without requiring mode transitions, maintaining versatility while eliminating time loss associated with switching modes.
3Object-affected harmful factors
If a whitelist of commands is implemented for remote access, then security against unauthorized modifications is enhanced, but the complexity of command management increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the security management complexity from the core AV control system by implementing the whitelist as a separate, manageable configuration. This extraction isolates the complexity of command filtering into a dedicated mechanism that can be independently maintained and updated without affecting the core vehicle control architecture, thus enhancing security while managing complexity.
4Reliability
If shell access is completely disabled for security, then production status is protected, but technicians cannot perform necessary diagnostic operations
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by providing different access characteristics to different commands within the system. Rather than uniformly disabling all shell access, the whitelist mechanism grants localized access permissions to specific diagnostic commands that are safe to execute, maintaining production status protection while enabling necessary diagnostic operations through selective command authorization.
Data Source
AI summary
There is disclosed an AV, comprising a vehicle motive system comprising hardware to operate the AV; and an AV controller to autonomously or semi-autonomously control the vehicle motive system, the AV controller comprising a hardware platform comprising a processor circuit and a memory, and instructions encoded within the memory to: provide an operating system (OS), including a utility set comprising a plurality of OS utility commands; provide a remote procedure server to accept incoming remote procedure requests from a host outside the AV; provide remote procedure stubs for a set of whitelisted commands, wherein the whitelisted commands comprise a subset of utility commands permissible to run on an AV with a production status; receive an incoming remote procedure request via the remote procedure server; map the incoming remote procedure request to a whitelisted command; and provide the remote procedure request to a remote procedure stub for the whitelisted command.