Automatically reconfigurable actuator control for reliable autonomous driving functions (AutoKonf)

In the past the driver was in the loop to control the car all the time. In case of system or component failure he has to take over the vehicle control immediately. Introduction of autonomous driving has a large impact on the vehicle E/E architecture, since the driver is not yet ready to take over vehicle control for a predefined amount of time. Whereas the exact time to transfer the control from vehicle systems to the driver is in discussion, the overall time range is still larger than few seconds and therefore in a case of a critical situation there is no time left for this control transfer. The consequence is that the vehicle must be able to manage the critical tasks by itself. Therefore, the safety critical systems have to be developed to work in a safe-operational mode and not in a fail-safe mode any more. That means, in case of failure the system is not permitted to ramp down and transfer the control to the driver. It must remain working even with a limited functionality (e. g. limp home). This project proposes a solution for braking and steering systems to fulfill the requirements of a fail-operational system interacting on the cross-system level without taking the driver in the loop and without complete above mentioned duplication, which leads to system costs reduction.
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AutoKonf (German syntax) stands for automatically reconfigurable actuator control for reliable autonomous driving functions. This project considers an interaction between state of the art braking and steering systems. During project work there were different driving scenarios analyzed and safety goals
defined. Within the predefined time the motor control electronics has to be switched “on fly” from
the originally failed ECU to the redundant one without any system degradation.