Output-Only Fault Detection and Mitigation of Networks of Autonomous Vehicles

Abstract

An autonomous vehicle platoon is a network of autonomous vehicles that communicate together to move in a desired way. One of the greatest threats to the operation of an autonomous vehicle platoon is the failure of either a physical component of a vehicle or a communication link between two vehicles. This failure affects the safety and stability of the autonomous vehicle platoon. Transmissibility-based health monitoring uses available sensor measurements for fault detection under unknown excitation and unknown dynamics of the network. After a fault is detected, a sliding mode controller is used to mitigate the fault. Different fault scenarios are considered including vehicle internal disturbances, cyber attacks, and communication delays. We apply the proposed approach to a bond graph model of the platoon and an experimental setup consisting of three autonomous robots.