Failure management for reliable automotive start up process

This paper describes the work done on advanced fault management strategies at a system of systems level on the start authorization process in a vehicle. The start authorization system in a vehicle is a complicated and critical vehicle process. It manifests itself as a complex multi-stage process which involves several stages of verification and validation amongst various distributed automotive systems through the exchange of messages and signals on a common network. The behavior of the start-up process in a vehicle is inferred: 50% from interaction of signals in the data in a start up process and 50% from expert knowledge already gathered from vehicle specifications and functionality testing. A model is constructed to diagnose vehicle no-start faults in a vehicle. With data collected from real vehicles, the start authorization process is benchmarked and a nominal behavior is established. In a vehicle no-start condition, the start-up process differs greatly from this nominal behavior and the different failure modes are identified to advise the driver of the root cause of the problem.