Phalanx: Failure-Resilient Truck Platooning System

Abstract

We introduce Phalanx, a failure-resilient truck pla- tooning system, where trucks in a platoon protect each other from sensor failures despite the lack of redundant sensors. For that, we first emulate the failed sensors by collectively utilizing other sensors across the platoon. If the failed sensor cannot be emulated, the control system is instantaneously reconfigured to a cooperative protection mode using only the live sensors. We take a scenario-based approach considering six scenarios with single and dual failures of the essential sensors (i.e., lidar, encoder, and camera) for platooning control. For each scenario, we present a protection method that enables the safe maneuvering of platoons. For the evaluation, Phalanx is implemented using our scale truck testbed instrumented with fault injection modules, demonstrating safe platooning controls for the failure scenarios. © 2023 EDAA.