Redundant hardware system for autonomous vehicles

A vehicle configured to operate in an autonomous driving mode, the vehicle comprising:

• a driving system including a steering subsystem, an acceleration subsystem and a deceleration subsystem to control driving of the vehicle in the autonomous driving mode;
• a perception system having a plurality of sensors configured to detect information about an environment around the vehicle, the plurality of sensors including a first set of sensors associated with a first operating domain and a second set of sensors associated with a second operating domain;
• and
• a control system operatively coupled to the driving system and the perception system, the control system including a first computing subsystem associated with the first operating domain and a second computing subsystem associated with the second operating domain, each of the first and second computing subsystems having one or more processors, wherein:
• the first and second computing subsystems are each configured to receive sensor data from both of the first set of sensors and the second set of sensors in a first mode of operation, and in response to the received sensor data in the first mode of operation, the control system is configured to control the driving system to drive the vehicle in the autonomous driving mode;
• upon detecting an error condition for one or more of the plurality of sensors, the first computing subsystem is configured to process sensor data received from only the first set of sensors in the first operating domain and the second computing subsystem is configured to process sensor data received from only the second set of sensors in the second operating domain;
• and
• in response to detecting the error condition, only one of the first computing subsystem or the second computing subsystem is configured to control the driving system in a fallback driving mode.