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AV Safety: Come Together, Right Now
Intel, and Volkswagen), is on its way to becoming a new ISO standard. approaches — including computing architectures, software algorithms,
The paper outlined “a comprehensive approach to safety-relevant and sensor fusion — pursued by different companies to ensure safety,
topics of automated driving,” aiming “to systematically break down said Poledna. Indeed, that was part of the impetus for launching The
safety principles into safety-by-design capabilities, elements, and Autonomous. TTTech Auto contends that players in the automotive
architectures and then to summarize the verification and validation industry need solutions that are much more specific, more concrete, and
methods in order to demonstrate the positive risk balance,” as its quicker on the trigger. The aim of The Autonomous is to go one or two
authors wrote. The ISO accepted their premise, giving the industry levels down from the upcoming ISO DTR 4804 standard, to conceive “a
the go-ahead to develop and formalize reference design implementation” the AV industry can use, he said.
SaFAD. The goal isn’t about picking the winning black box, though.
Wondering what it might take to Instead of building AVs around black boxes, carmakers would like to be
turn a “comprehensive approach” into able to mix and match different modules — such as safety, doer-checker,
a workable ISO standard, we reached and calculation modules — from different vendors. Assume that a safety
out to Jack Weast, senior principal module from Supplier A bears no resemblance to a safety module from
engineer at SaFAD member Intel and Supplier B and that the differences pose critical compatibility issues. To
vice president of standards at Mobil- avoid that scenario, Poledna said, the AV industry must have “a common
eye. “We take the original SaFAD paper, understanding of what the safety architecture would look like,” with a
clean it up, get rid of any color com- common approach to elements such as interfaces and data structures.
mentaries, and reformat the technical On the one hand, the ISO standard is deemed too generic. On the
Intel/Mobileye’s Jack Weast meat of the document into the ISO other, too many players in the AV industry are already implementing
standard,” he told EE Times Europe. different safety solutions on their own. How does The Autonomous
Simon Fürst, principal expert for plan to succeed as a middle-ground solution?
autonomous driving technologies at “If we agree on ‘doer and checker’ as a generally acceptable safety
BMW Group, heads the ISO commit- approach, I’d consider it a huge achievement,” said Poledna. He’d like
tee working to formalize SaFAD and to see the industry come to a collegial understanding on data structure,
is hoping for a quick turnaround on interfaces, and a definition of free space. The Autonomous is holding a
the new standard. He announced in series of workshops focused on such issues as computing architecture,
a webcast called “The Autonomous” AI, security, and regulation. While participants are encouraged to share
that his group is shooting for mid-2020 best practices, the goal for The Autonomous group is to foster amity
to publish its ISO Draft Technology among key automotive players and publish documents and technical
Report (DTR) 4804. papers reflecting state-of-the-art solutions in the industry.
Weast described the DTR as the first
BMW’s Simon Fürst step for ISO standardization. NARROW FOCUS
Several auto industry sources called If The Autonomous is clicking one or two levels down from the ISO
the new ISO standard a step in the right direction but warned that it standard, Weast said that the IEEE P2846 working group, which he
would be years before the draft becomes the final standard. Further- chairs, is boring down further into the details, focusing on “a very nar-
more, they said that they find it too generic and too high-level to help row area of decision-making capability.”
automotive OEMs in the short term. The benefit of being narrowly focused is that “we can go much
Intel’s Weast acknowledged that the scope of the document is “pretty deeper,” said Weast. In examining the decision-making process, “we
broad.” But he defended it as “a big umbrella,” covering discussions of also look at what kinds of assumptions we’d make about other road
how to “define, derive, develop, and test an automated driving system users.” Depending on the city or the situation (an intersection with an
end to end.” occluded view, for example) in which an AV is driving, knowledge of the
Noting that the document offers “a useful
structure,” Weast said that Intel/Mobileye is
“obviously supportive of the safety-by-design
principles.” The document provides “a very well-
thought-out way of doing things,” he said. “This
is why it’s great to have an ISO document.”
GOING ONE OR TWO LEVELS DOWN
The Autonomous (creator of the eponymous
webcast) is an initiative of TTTech Auto,
which specializes in safe software and hardware
systems for advanced vehicles. Poledna told
EE Times Europe that TTTech Auto is convening
many players in the automotive ecosystem at an
event to “brainstorm and discuss” development
of “a proving ground” for car OEMs, Tier Ones,
and chip vendors to test out the safety of their
AV systems.
“They need to have certain exchanges
amongst themselves” at a time when everyone
is struggling to figure out what it takes to bring
safe L3 and L4 cars to market, he added. Everyone is struggling to figure out what it takes to bring safe L3 and L4 cars to market.
The Autonomous is fully aware of the many (Image: The Autonomous)
JUNE 2020 | www.eetimes.eu