Fault-tolerant automotive braking system

A fault-tolerant braking system, comprising:

• a brake assembly coupled to a wheel of the vehicle, the brake assembly configured to adjust a braking force applied to the wheel;
• a brake-by-wire (BBW) system configured to control the brake assembly in response to a braking request;
• and
• a vehicle control module (VCM) in electrical communication with the BBW system, the VCM configured to detect a fault of at least one of the brake assembly and the BBW system and operates the vehicle in at least one degraded driving mode that reduces output of the engine in response to detecting the fault,
• wherein the VCM comprises:
• a degraded mode module configured to identify a severity of the fault among a plurality of different fault severities;
• and
• an engine/transmission module that controls at least one of the engine and the transmission to operate according to different operating parameters based on the severity of the fault, and
• wherein the degraded mode module identifies a critical-severity fault in response to detecting a faulty critical-priority component included in at least one of the brake assembly and the BBW system, identifies a high-severity fault in response to detecting a faulty high-priority component included in at least one of the brake assembly and the BBW system, identifies a moderate-severity fault in response to detecting a faulty moderate-priority component included in at least one of the brake assembly and the BBW system, and identifies a low-severity fault in response to detecting a faulty low-priority component included in at least one of the brake assembly and the BBW system.

A method of controlling a vehicle including a brake-by-wire (BBW) system, the method comprising:

• detecting a fault of at least one of the BBW system and a brake assembly configured to control braking of a wheel;
• determining a severity of the fault among a plurality of different severities;
• activating a degraded driving mode among a plurality of driving modes based on the severity of the fault, each driving mode configured to control at least one of an engine of the vehicle and a transmission of the vehicle according to different reduced driving parameters;
• and
• limiting operation of at least one of the engine and the transmission according to the reduced driving parameters set by the activated degraded driving mode,
• wherein determining the severity of the fault further comprises:
• identifying a critical-severity fault in response to detecting a faulty critical-priority component included in at least one of the brake assembly and the BBW system;
• identifying a high-severity fault in response to detecting a faulty high-priority component included in at least one of the brake assembly and the BBW system;
• identifying a moderate-severity fault in response to detecting a faulty moderate-priority component included in at least one of the brake assembly and the BBW system;
• and
• identifying a low-severity fault in response to detecting a faulty low-priority component included in at least one of the brake assembly and the BBW system.