Sensor fault detection and identification using residual failure pattern recognition

A system for sensor fault detection and identification for a vehicle, the system comprising:

• sensors, located on the vehicle and configured to perform measurements, wherein the system is configured to obtain data from the measurements,
• wherein the data comprises m number types of data, and wherein m is an integer greater than two;
• and
• at least one processor configured to:
• perform majority voting on the data for each of the types of data to generate a corresponding single voted value for each of the types of data;
• and
• generate for each of the types of data, m number of corresponding estimated values of the respective different m types of data by using n number of the voted values, wherein n is equal to m minus one;
• wherein for each of the types of data, the corresponding voted value is not used to generate the corresponding estimated values,
• wherein the at least one processor is configured to generate residuals by comparing the estimated values to the voted values and to analyze a pattern of the residuals to determine which, if any, of the types of the data is erroneous to detect and identify a fault experienced by at least one of the sensors on the vehicle,
• wherein the at least one processor is further configured to generate a visual and/or audio alert signal if any of the types of data is determined to be erroneous, and
• wherein the at least one processor is further configured to generate a synthetic data signal indicating whether to use synthetic data instead of erroneous sensed data.