Vehicle with high integrity perception system

A vehicle comprising:

• a machine controller;
• a steering system;
• a propulsion system;
• a braking system;
• a sensor system having a plurality of different types of sensors, wherein some types of sensors are more accurate that other types of sensors within the plurality of different types of sensors in a particular environment;
• and
• wherein the machine controller is connected to the steering system, the propulsion system, the braking system;
• and the sensor system, wherein the machine controller identifies a dynamic condition using the sensor system and sends commands to the steering system, the propulsion system, and the braking system to move the vehicle using sensor data detected by the sensor system, and wherein the machine controller identifies an environment using the plurality of different types of sensors on the vehicle.

A vehicle comprising:

• a machine controller;
• a steering system;
• a propulsion system;
• a braking system;
• a sensor system;
• and
• a knowledge base used by the machine controller, wherein the machine controller is connected to the steering system, the propulsion system, the braking system;
• and the sensor system, wherein the machine controller identifies an environment using a plurality of sensors on the vehicle, wherein the plurality of sensors comprises at least one of a global positioning system, structured light sensor, two dimensional/three dimensional lidar, dead reckoning, far and medium infrared camera, visible light camera, radar, ultrasonic sonar, and radio frequency identification reader;
• identifies the location of the vehicle;
• identifies a map based on the location of the vehicle;
• identifies a set of objects in the environment using data received from the plurality of sensors and a knowledge base, wherein the knowledge base specifies the set of objects based on the environment;
• places thematic features into the map using the set of objects identified and the map identified;
• controls the vehicle using the knowledge base, wherein the knowledge base further comprises an online knowledge base, an a priori knowledge base, and a learned knowledge base;
• monitors the plurality of sensors for sensor integrity;
• identifies a fault in at least one sensor in the plurality of sensors, wherein the fault in at least one sensor is one of sensor degradation and sensor failure;
• responsive to identifying a fault in at least one sensor in the plurality of sensors, generates an alert displaying the fault in at least one sensor in the plurality of sensors, selects a different sensor to compensate for the fault in at least one sensor, transmits a request for sensor data to a sensor system of another vehicle, receives the sensor data from the sensor system of another vehicle, and performs localization based on the sensor data from the sensor system of another vehicle.