Abstract: A method for autonomous vehicle fault diagnosis and protection, including steps of: (S1) acquiring fault information of at least one functional module in an autonomous vehicle system and overall state information of the autonomous vehicle system in real time; (S2) determining fault handling information of the vehicle by analyzing the acquired fault information and the overall state information of the autonomous vehicle system; and (S3) sending the fault handling information to a control and execution layer of the vehicle for processing. With the fault diagnosis system including software and hardware according to the present disclosure, the operation situations of the autonomous vehicle software system and the vehicle hardware equipment can be monitored, and the fault handling information of the vehicle can be rapidly sent to a vehicle control unit, thereby ensuring that security measures can be quickly taken in the case of an emergency of the vehicle.