A Combination of FMEA and Digital Twinning for Rapid, Accurate, and Online Diagnosis in Vehicles Using COTS Embedded Computing Devices

Vehicles are getting more and more complicated while at the same time they are safety-critical systems which mean their failures can lead to catastrophic consequences. This implies that more sophisticated diagnostic techniques are required for vehicles that also cannot be expensive as they must be widely available to serve the general public’s safety. To this end, this paper shows how a process called Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) and a technology called Digital Twinning (DT) can be combined in a novel way to provide an inexpensive and yet effective online diagnosis for vehicles. The approach can be implemented by Commercial-Of-The-Shelf (COTS) embedded computing devices which explains why it is not expensive. It is also online, which means it is active and operational while the vehicle is in operation and motion. In order to quantitatively evaluate vehicle diagnostic approaches, this paper provides definitions for two metrics that measure the impact of the diagnosis on the ease of repair process. As an experimental case study, the proposed approach was implemented for an Electronic Throttle Control (ETC) usually used in modern vehicles. The observations indicate that the proposed approach can improve the accuracy of diagnosis above two times compared with a classic Hardware-in-the-Loop (HiL) technique. It must be emphasized that such accuracy is achieved along with online and real-time operation and low-cost implementation.