Serialized Vehicle Safety Computing for Autonomous Failover Stop

Resolve Bottlenecks,
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions

Solution Overview

Problem

Automated vehicles face challenges in ensuring safe operation after a critical component, such as a vehicle computing platform, fails, as they are unable to perform necessary calculations for safe navigation.

Innovation Solution

Implementing a vehicle safety system with serialized or combined serial-parallel computing architectures that allow for automated safety response measures, including generating and sending vehicle control commands to ensure a safe stop, even after a computing platform failure, by utilizing future trajectory information and sensor data.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If a vehicle computing platform fails, then the vehicle loses the ability to perform computationally intensive calculations for safe autonomous operation, but the vehicle safety system can take over to ensure continued safe operation for a limited period

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvesafe operation capabilityVSAvoidcomputing architecture

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The computing architecture is segmented into distinct functional components: a main vehicle computing platform for normal autonomous operations and a separate vehicle safety system for failure response. This segmentation allows the safety system to independently handle critical safety functions without being dependent on the main platform's continuous operation.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #1Segmentation

Solution Approach 2:

The vehicle safety system receives and stores future trajectory information in advance from the main computing platform before any failure occurs. This preliminary action ensures that when the main platform fails, the safety system immediately has the necessary navigation data to continue safe operation without requiring real-time calculations.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

2Loss of time

If the vehicle uses a serialized computing architecture with separate safety system, then the safety response time is improved, but the overall system complexity increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvesafety response timeVSAvoidcomputing architecture

Core Design Contradiction:

Loss of timeVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The safety-critical functions are extracted from the main computing platform and placed into a dedicated vehicle safety system. This extraction eliminates the need for complex inter-process communication and failover mechanisms, allowing the safety system to respond immediately to failures without being burdened by the complexity of integrated systems.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #2Taking out (Extraction)

Solution Approach 2:

The vehicle safety system acts as an intermediary between the main computing platform and the vehicle actuation systems. It receives trajectory information from the main platform and sends control commands to actuators, simplifying the architecture by providing a clear, dedicated communication path that reduces response time.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

3Reliability

If the vehicle safety system utilizes stored trajectory information, then the ability to maintain safe operation after failure is improved, but the duration of safe operation is limited by the stored information period

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvecontinued operation capabilityVSAvoidsafe operation duration

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSDuration of action of moving object

Solution Approach 1:

The main computing platform continuously provides future trajectory information to the vehicle safety system in advance, allowing the safety system to build up a buffer of navigation data. This preliminary action ensures that when failure occurs, the vehicle can operate safely for the duration of the stored trajectory information without immediate human intervention.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

Data Source

PatentUS20230311909A1Automated vehicle safety response methods and corresponding vehicle safety systems with serialized computing architectures

Publication Date: 2023.10.05 PONY AI INC

AI summary

Described herein are systems, methods, and non-transitory computer-readable media for implementing automated vehicle safety response measures to ensure continued safe automated vehicle operation for a limited period of time after a vehicle component or vehicle system that supports an automated vehicle driving function fails. When a critical vehicle component/system such as a vehicle computing platform fails, the vehicle is likely no longer capable of performing calculations required to safely operate and navigate the vehicle in an autonomous manner, or at a minimum, is no longer able to ensure the accuracy of such calculations. In such a scenario, the automated vehicle safety response measures disclosed herein can ensure - despite failure of the vehicle component/system -continued safe automated operation of the vehicle for a limited period of time in order to bring the vehicle to a safe stop.