Functional Architecture for Autonomous Driving and its Implementation

It is predicted that due to such technology-driven trends as electrification, connectivity, autonomous driving and diverse mobility, the automotive market will reach a size of 6.7 trillion USD in 2030. Nevertheless, the composition and architectures of the future autonomous vehicles are still unsettled due to the continuous advancement of sensors and computing hardware, availability and interpretation of new data and safety requirements. Given the existing architectures of the autonomous systems, there is a lack of start-to-end depiction of the self-driving car design and components. This scientific article aspires to serve as a starting guide and boilerplate for the evolution of future architectures of such autonomous systems. The article summarizes the previous research in the field, describes the overall hardware and software composition of the EDI Drive-by-Wire car and investigates the components of the autonomous system: data acquisition, perception algorithms, chosen hardware, software component management, vehicle interfacing, approach to failsafe and fail-operational functionalities.