Distributed safety monitors for automated vehicles

Abstract

Controllers, control architectures, systems and methods are described for controlling a host vehicle's participation in a platoon. In some embodiments, a vehicle control system includes a vehicle controller configured to determine vehicle control commands for at least partially automatically controlling the host vehicle based at least in part on sensor information. The vehicle control commands are arranged to be directly or indirectly utilized by one or more host vehicle control units resident on the host vehicle. The vehicle control system also includes one or more safety monitoring algorithms that, during at least partially automated driving, verify that selected vehicle control commands received from the vehicle controller meet selected safety criteria. At least some of the safety algorithms utilize sensor data in the verification of the commands received from the vehicle controller. The sensor data used by the safety algorithms may come from the host vehicle and/or a second vehicle.