Fault tolerant architecture for a personal vehicle

Details Fault tolerant architecture for a personal vehicle Fault tolerant architecture for a personal vehicle

1999-09-27

2001-04-24

Cuchlinski, Jr., William A. (Department: 3661)

Data processing: vehicles, navigation, and relative location

Vehicle control, guidance, operation, or indication

C701S022000, C701S033000, C701S034000, C701S036000, C701S039000, C180S007100, C180S907000, C280S005200

Reexamination Certificate

active

06223104

ABSTRACT:

TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention pertains to system architecture for a powered vehicle, and more particularly to redundant features of system architecture.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Personal vehicles, such as those used by handicapped persons, for one example, may be self-propelled and user-guidable, and, further, may entail stabilization in one or more of the fore-aft or left-right planes, such as when no more than two wheels are in ground contact at a time. More particularly, such a vehicle is depicted in
FIG. 1
where it is designated generally by numeral
10
. Vehicle
10
for transporting subject
12
or other payload, may include one or more wheels
16
or clusters
14
of wheels
16
, with each wheels and/or clusters being motor-driven, in coordination or independently. Such vehicles are among those described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,701,965 and in U.S. Pat. No. 5,971,091 which are each incorporated herein by reference. Vehicles of this sort may be more efficiently and safely operated when they employ system architectural features supplementary to those described in the prior art.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention, there is provided a vehicle for locomotion over land capable of failure detection. The vehicle has a support structure for supporting a load, a ground-contacting module for providing locomotion capability to the support structure, and a motorized drive arrangement form permitting controllable motion of the ground contacting element. Additionally, the vehicle has a plurality of control components, each control component having an output, and a comparator for comparing the output of a first control component with the output of another of the control components for identifying a failure of either the first or the other control components. The control components may include a sensor for sensing at least one of a position and an orientation of the vehicle, a plurality of redundant control channels, each control channel capable of independently controlling the motorized drive arrangement, or a plurality of processors coupled to each of the redundant control channels by means of a system bus. Each processor has an output and each processor is capable of receiving input commands from a user, a signal from the sensor, and the output of each of the other processors.
In accordance with alternate embodiments of the invention, the control components may be chosen from among a plurality of sensors for sensing position or orientation of the vehicle and a plurality of control channels, each control channel capable of independently controlling the motorized drive. The control components may also include a plurality of processors coupled to the control channels by means of a system bus, and the system bus may couple the plurality of processors and at least one of the set of the user input, a battery capacity indicator, a temperature indicator, a seat height controller, and a crash protection controller. The output of any of the control components may be provided at a rate exceeding a mechanical response rate of the motorized drive. Each processor may be capable of receiving input commands from a user, a signal from the sensor, and the output of each of the other processors, and the comparator may compare the outputs of the processors for identifying a failure of any of the processors, it may also include a disconnect circuit for removing a defective processor from the system bus, and it may suppress the output of any processor for which a failure has been identified in such a manner as to allow continued operation of the vehicle using all other processors.
In accordance with yet further embodiments of the invention, there is provided a vehicle having a support structure for supporting a load and a ground-contacting element for providing locomotion capability to the support structure, the ground contacting element movable about an axle with respect to a local axis, and a motorized drive for permitting controllable motion of the ground contacting element about the axle and for permitting motion of the axle such that the local axis is moved with respect to the support structure. A sensor is provided for sensing at least one of a position and an orientation of the vehicle, as are a plurality of control channels, each control channel capable of independently controlling the motorized drive. The vehicle has a plurality of processors coupled to the control channels by means of a system bus, each processor having an output, each processor capable of receiving input commands from a user, a signal from the sensor, and the output of each of the other processors, and a comparator for intercomparing the output of the processors for identifying a failure of any of the processors. The vehicle may have a motorized drive having a plurality of redundant windings.
In accordance with another embodiment of the invention, there is provided a fail-safe joystick. The joystick has a centering mechanism that restores the joystick to a center position when released by a user and a sensor for detecting the joystick in the center position.


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