Fault Detection, Localization, and Mitigation of a Network of Connected Autonomous Vehicles Using Transmissibility Identification

This paper investigates fault detection, localization, and mitigation of autonomous vehicles platoons. The platoon is a network of autonomous vehicles that communicate together to move in a desired way. A fault in an autonomous vehicles platoon is a failure in either a physical component of a vehicle or a communication link between two vehicles in the platoon. This failure may lead to damage in one or more of the autonomous vehicles. Model-based health monitoring of a network of vehicles requires knowledge of a model of the system and the excitation signal, and thus may not be applicable. In this paper, we use measurements from available sensors in the platoon to identify sensor-to-sensor models that can be used for health monitoring, fault localization, and fault mitigation in the platoon. The dynamics of the network and the vehicles and the excitation signal that acts on the platoon are assumed to be unknown. We apply the proposed approach to a model of a platoon of autonomous vehicles and an experimental setup consisting of a platoon of three autonomous robots.