A Study on Sensor Fusion for Fault Tolerant Brake-by-Wire Driver Input Design with Dissimilar Sensors

Recently the automotive industry has witnessed a significant interest in brake-by-wire applications for purposes of brake systems [1][2], hybrid powertrain [3], etc. To ensure acceptable dependability of brake-by-wire, redundancy of components such as sensors, actuators, ECUs and communication bus should be implemented. Algorithms for managing redundant components are critical to the proper function of such systems. This paper focuses on the sensor fusion aspects of dissimilar sensors to achieve fault tolerance. Measurement conversion accuracy issues for dissimilar sensors, such as the driver input unit's physical characteristics, are discussed. Over 200 pedal actuation samples have been collected to examine several redundancy management algorithms in a drive input device under conditions of sensor and mechanical faults.