Controller Integrity in Automotive Failsafe System Architectures

Embedded controllers and digital signal processors are increasingly being used in automotive safety critical control systems. Controller integrity is a significant concern in these systems. Over the past decade, several techniques have been published about controller safety and integrity verification. These techniques include: single processor with watchdog, dual processors, dual core processor, and asymmetric processor (intelligent watchdog). Each of these techniques have benefits, however, many new non-distributed safety-critical systems are applying the asymmetric processor technique to help verify controller integrity.

This paper discusses an overview of five controller integrity techniques, and then provides a detailed discussion of an asymmetric processor approach. This paper presents two different options within the asymmetric processor approach.