Vehicle Control Device Dynamic Fail-Safe Switching
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing vehicle control systems for autonomous driving do not adequately consider changes in the vehicle's traveling state and surrounding environment during fail-safe operations, leading to inadequate fail-operational behaviors.
Innovation Solution
A vehicle control device comprising a recognition/determination ECU, an integrated control ECU, and an anomaly detection ECU that generate and manage paths based on environmental information, detect anomalies, and sequentially switch controls over time to maintain optimal vehicle operation during failures, ensuring safety and functionality.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If a fail-safe operation is determined based on initial traveling state and surrounding environment, then the system can implement basic fail-safe behavior, but the system cannot adapt to changes in traveling state and surrounding environment during the fail-safe operation
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements dynamic fail-safe control by continuously monitoring traveling state and surrounding environment during fail-safe operation, and switching between different fail-safe control strategies based on current conditions. The anomaly detection ECU dynamically adjusts the fail-safe behavior rather than relying on a static predetermined response, allowing the system to adapt to changing situations while maintaining manageable complexity through structured decision-making.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent employs feedback mechanisms where the anomaly detection ECU continuously monitors the vehicle's traveling state and surrounding environment during fail-safe operation. This feedback loop enables the system to detect changes in conditions and appropriately adjust the fail-safe control strategy, ensuring the vehicle responds adaptively to new situations while maintaining systematic control through the feedback-driven decision process.
2Reliability
If multiple ECUs are used for autonomous driving functions, then the system can provide comprehensive control capabilities, but the system becomes more vulnerable to anomalies and harder to manage during failures
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an anomaly detection ECU as an intermediary component that centralizes the monitoring and coordination of multiple ECUs during fail-safe operations. This intermediary ECU receives information from various surrounding environment acquisition devices and coordinates the fail-safe responses across different ECUs, reducing the management complexity despite having multiple ECUs in the system while maintaining comprehensive monitoring coverage.
Solution Approach 2:
The anomaly detection ECU serves multiple functions: it monitors surrounding environment acquisition devices, detects anomalies in real-time, determines appropriate fail-safe control strategies, and coordinates responses across multiple ECUs. This multi-functional design consolidates several critical functions into a single coordinating component, improving reliability during anomalies while managing the complexity introduced by having multiple ECUs in the autonomous driving system.
Data Source
AI summary
Provided is a vehicle control device configured to execute specific control while at the same time sequentially switching the specific control that defines an operation to be executed by each of a plurality of surrounding environment acquisition devices configured to acquire information on a surrounding environment of a vehicle, a recognition/determination ECU configured to generate a path on which the vehicle is to travel, and an integrated control ECU configured to control the vehicle based on the generated path along with an elapse of time since detection of an anomaly, when the anomaly is detected in any one of the plurality of surrounding environment acquisition devices, the recognition/determination ECU, and the integrated control ECU.