The diagnostic architecture of the PEGASUS project car

The automotive industry is at the verve to deploy computer systems not only for safety-related and comfort functionality, but for safety-critical by-wire systems. In the scope of the PEGASUS project a car will be equipped with time-triggered technology in order to provide not only superior car dynamics but also investigate system design and integration on the basis of a series car. As part of this project a diagnostic solution is being developed in order to tackle prevalent diagnostic problems, such as the trouble-not-identified phenomenon in electronic systems, by exploiting the error-containment properties of the underlying architecture. In this paper we present the diagnostic architecture of the PEGASUS car that operates on the distributed state of the system in order to trace experienced failures back to the origin and decide on the type of fault (e.g., transient vs. permanent, internal vs. external) that is affecting the system. A necessary prerequisite of such an integrated diagnostic infrastructure is the continuous monitoring and subsequent dissemination of diagnostic information in order to allow a meaningful analysis.