TTTech Auto and Infineon design an operational failure architecture for highly automated level 3 and 4 driving

TTTech Auto and Infineon Technologies have developed key components for an operational failure electronic architecture for highly automated driving of SAE levels 3 and 4. This enables safe and reliable processing, for example, of radar sensor data or LiDAR camera and targets cars and technology manufacturers. The architectural failure operation concept and its key components ensure the safe operation of the motorway control, valet parking and autonomous truck driving functions in the event of failure of individual functions.

The joint research contributed to the success of the European project PRYSTINE (Programmable Systems for Intelligence in Automobiles). With a budget of around 50 million euros, PRYSTINE aimed to achieve safe automated driving through a flawless perception of the urban environment. For three years, around sixty partners worked together in the fields of sensor fusion, electronic architectures and artificial intelligence coordinated by Infineon.

The Blended Critical Approach enables the use of computer hardware and software that run applications of varying levels of Automotive Safety Integrity (ASIL). A specially developed failover mechanism, made up of a primary (“Doer” node) and a back-up computer (“Fallback” node) provides the necessary failure functionality for vehicles.

If the “Doer” fails, the “Fallback” quickly takes over in the millisecond range. This mechanism ensures operability in the event of a system failure, for example, the sensor fusion, trajectory planning and object recognition tasks of SAE level 3 and 4 functions.

Failover management mechanism developed within the framework of the European PRYSTINE project (Copyright TTTech Auto)

The modular concept offers the very flexible and rapid development of automated driving systems (ADS) by allowing the combination of various commercial elements such as SoC (System on a Chip), automotive microcontrollers, power supplies, with the deterministic backbone network as well as several cameras.

This developed architecture represents a configuration for a safe electronic architecture to take highly automated driving to the next level. Infineon and TTTech Auto, with the participation of TTTech Group, will continue their collaboration to enable level 4 and level 5 automated driving.

With a fail-safe system design, automakers raise the safety of their highly automated vehicles to aviation standards in a cost-effective manner. This system architecture takes into account the high safety and reliability requirements of the series production programs of global car manufacturers. In addition, based on a centralized IT architecture, it forms the basis of the future software car.

– Stefan Poledna, Technical Director of TTTech Auto

We develop multicore microprocessors to offer a high performance, safe and economical solution for highly automated vehicles. Multicore processors provide the necessary processing power, sufficient memory and meet the increasing safety requirements due to the electrification of the car and the advancement of automated driving.

—Thomas Boehm, senior vice president of automotive microcontrollers at Infineon

PRYSTINE (Programmable Systems for Intelligence in Automobiles) has received funding from the research and innovation program of the European Union, Horizon 2020 and of the ECSEL participating States via the ECSEL Joint Undertaking within the framework of the grant n ° 783190. This project is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research under the PRYSTINE program (16ESE0329). The Austrian contribution was funded by the BMK (Federal Ministry for Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology) as part of the funding initiative “ICT of the future”.