Vehicle Health Monitoring With Task Reassignment and Isolation Barriers
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Solution Overview
Problem
Autonomous vehicles face challenges due to the increased susceptibility of commercial vehicle components to failure in harsh operating environments, leading to reduced longevity and increased failure rates.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a system for monitoring the operational health of vehicle components, detecting failures, and reassigning tasks to healthier components, while also providing an isolation barrier to mitigate harsh conditions and initiate fault recovery processes.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If commercial vehicle components are used in autonomous vehicles, then device complexity and functionality are improved, but reliability deteriorates due to increased susceptibility to failure in harsh operating environments
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments vehicle components into harsh-environment-tolerant components (located outside the barrier) and non-tolerant components (located inside the barrier). This segmentation allows the vehicle to utilize advanced non-tolerant components for enhanced functionality while protecting them from environmental damage, thereby resolving the contradiction between functionality and reliability.
Solution Approach 2:
An environmental barrier is introduced as an intermediary between harsh operating conditions and sensitive vehicle components. The barrier mitigates environmental factors (temperature, moisture, vibration) that cause component failure, allowing reliable operation of advanced components without exposing them directly to harsh conditions.
2Productivity
If task processing is concentrated in single vehicle components, then processing efficiency is improved, but reliability deteriorates when component failure occurs
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by identifying and designating backup components before failures occur. When a component fails, the task reassignment mechanism can immediately activate pre-identified backup components, maintaining operational continuity without significant disruption to processing efficiency.
Solution Approach 2:
When a component fails, the system discards its task processing function and recovers functionality by reassigning tasks to backup components. This allows the system to maintain operational continuity by recovering lost capabilities through dynamic task reallocation rather than complete system failure.
3Device complexity
If vehicle components operate in harsh environments without protection, then device complexity is reduced, but reliability and duration of action deteriorate due to increased failure rates
Solution Approach 1:
The system extracts sensitive vehicle components from the harsh external environment by placing them inside a protected barrier. This extraction shields components from temperature extremes, moisture, and vibration, thereby extending their operational life and reliability without significantly increasing overall system complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The environmental barrier functions as a composite protective structure that combines multiple protective functions (thermal insulation, moisture barrier, vibration damping) into a single integrated system. This composite approach protects components from multiple environmental factors simultaneously without requiring separate protection systems for each factor.
Data Source
AI summary
Described herein are systems, methods, and non-transitory computer-readable media for isolating commercial components from a harsh vehicle operating environment to increase the longevity of such components and to decrease their failure rate. Also described herein are systems, methods, and non-transitory computer-readable media for monitoring the operational health status of vehicle components for failure, and upon detecting failure of a component, initiating a processing task reassignment and fault recovery process. In this manner, processing load handled by the component prior to failure can be offloaded to one or more other vehicle components while a fault recovery process is initiated for the component. When the failed component is operational again, the vehicle may revert back to the task assignment in place prior to the component failure, may continue with the current task assignment, or may transition to another different task reassignment.