Observer for Faulty Perception Correction in Autonomous Vehicles 2020-01-0694

Operation of an autonomous vehicle (AV) carries risk if it acts on inaccurate information about itself or the environment. The perception system is responsible for interpreting the world and providing the results to the path planning and other decision systems. The perception system performance is a result of the operating state of the sensors, e.g. is a sensor in fault or being adversely affected by the weather or environmental conditions, and approach to sensor measurement interpretation. We propose a trailing horizon switched system observer that minimizes the difference between reference tracking values developed from sensor fusion performed at an upper level and the values from a potentially faulty sensor based upon the convex combination of different sensor observation model outputs; the sensor observations models are associated with different sensor operating errors. The preferred observer target is a stationary landmark so as to remove additional uncertainty resulting from tracking of moving targets. Results for five scenarios show the observer identifies the appropriate sensor model in no more than a few sample intervals.