One of the important control systems in any of the hardware architecture be its autonomous vehicle, commercial vehicle, or any sort of Industrial automation phenomenon, Fail-safe control system has to be designed.
“The fail-safe control system interacts with safety-relevant hardware and transmits control data of the mission software to the hardware abstraction.” The safety implementation is provided with a reactive minimalistic. The safety zone for the vehicle is created by covering blind spots with four safety laser sensors.
When the vehicle is entering a critical zone, virtual bumpers are implemented to react to unintended objects. Thereby, the system reacts to any unsafe state of the system. Each laser scanner is mounted to create a perception of a virtual bumper which is contained in the reactive safety behavior network and combined by a maximum fusion.
The highest bumper activity is determined by suppressing the safe state. The higher level is monitored by the fail-safe layer and also the mission control software through signal generated by heartbeat and reacting to system failures.
Source:- Commercial Vehicle Technology by Karsten Berns and et al.