UK Government is Ending (and Saving) the Autonomous Vehicle Industry as We Know It
By: Michael Dekort
Tags: Autonomous Cars, AI, Driverless Cars, Machine Learning, Mobility

Reference article — Autonomous vehicle makers should be held responsible for accidents, says Law Commission — https://snip.ly/vog5f2#https://thenextweb.com/shift/2020/12/18/autonomous-vehicle-makers-should-be-held-responsible-for-accidents-says-law-commission/

The law is meant to hold the autonomous vehicle makers responsible for when the systems do not perform properly. But it’s the part about them adding time for handover that is like the meteor that ended the dinosaurs. Both very helpful to mankind. And in this case saves the industry from itself.

“However, the Law Commission references a “transition period” of 10 to 40 seconds in which a driver would have to regain control of the vehicle. During this handover, the driver isn’t responsible for accidents.”

First, good for the UK government, unlike the US, to recognize handover can only be made safe if it provides time to regain proper situational awareness so the driver can do the right thing the right way.

Now . . that part will make L2 and L3 virtually impossible to use and public development (safety driving) completely impossible to use. And forces the industry to stop most public safety driving and switch to mostly simulation (and proper non-gaming based simulation) or development and testing will end. Thus, accelerating the current collapse and ending the industry as we know it and saving it at the same time.

Since you cannot know when maximum handover time is needed the system must assume it could be needed at any time. That will create safety gaps to other vehicles and objects that will prohibit the use of the system. (Do the math on various speeds up to 40 seconds). Beyond that is sensor perception range limits. Just 10 seconds at 50mph is 250 yards. Even if the objects were far enough away to allow handover, the sensors would not detect them in time to allow for handover.

These issues should also prohibit all public safety driving for development as well since they not only don’t have the ability to get near 40 seconds they have frequent spontaneous handover.

More in my articles here

The Autonomous Vehicle Industry can be Saved by doing the Opposite of what is being done now

· https://medium.com/@imispgh/the-autonomous-vehicle-industry-can-be-saved-by-doing-the-opposite-of-what-is-being-done-now-b4e5c6ae9237

SAE Autonomous Vehicle Engineering Magazine — Simulation’s Next Generation (featuring Dactle)

· https://www.sae.org/news/2020/08/new-gen-av-simulation

Autonomous Vehicle Industry’s Self-Inflicted and Avoidable Collapse — Ongoing Update

· https://medium.com/@imispgh/i-predicted-this-a-year-and-a-half-ago-1b47bf098b03

Proposal for Successfully Creating an Autonomous Ground or Air Vehicle

· https://medium.com/@imispgh/proposal-for-successfully-creating-an-autonomous-ground-or-air-vehicle-539bb10967b1

Simulation can create a Complete Digital Twin of the Real World if DoD/Aerospace Technology is used

· https://medium.com/@imispgh/simulation-can-create-a-complete-digital-twin-of-the-real-world-if-dod-aerospace-technology-is-used-c79a64551647

Simulation Photorealism is almost Irrelevant for Autonomous Vehicle Development and Testing

· https://medium.com/@imispgh/simulation-photorealism-is-almost-irrelevant-for-autonomous-vehicle-development-and-testing-136871dee440

Autonomous Vehicles Need to Have Accidents to Develop this Technology

· https://medium.com/@imispgh/autonomous-vehicles-need-to-have-accidents-to-develop-this-technology-2cc034abac9b

Using the Real World is better than Proper Simulation for AV Development — NONSENSE

· https://medium.com/@imispgh/using-the-real-world-is-better-than-proper-simulation-for-autonomous-vehicle-development-nonsense-90cde4ccc0ce

SAE Autonomous Vehicle Engineering Magazine — End Public Shadow/Safety Driving

· https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/sae/ave_201901/index.php

My name is Michael DeKort — I am a former system engineer, engineering and program manager for Lockheed Martin. I worked in aircraft simulation, the software engineering manager for all of NORAD, the Aegis Weapon System, and on C4ISR for DHS.

Key Industry Participation

- Founder SAE On-Road Autonomous Driving Simulation Task Force

- Member SAE ORAD Verification and Validation Task Force

- Stakeholder for UL4600 — Creating AV Safety Guidelines

- Member of the IEEE Artificial Intelligence & Autonomous Systems Policy Committee (AI&ASPC)

- Presented the IEEE Barus Ethics Award for Post 9/11 Efforts

My company is Dactle

We are building an aerospace/DoD/FAA level D, full L4/5 simulation-based testing and AI system with an end-state scenario matrix to address several of the critical issues in the AV/OEM industry I mentioned in my articles below. This includes replacing 99.9% of public shadow and safety driving. As well as dealing with significant real-time, model fidelity and loading/scaling issues caused by using gaming engines and other architectures. (Issues Unity will confirm. We are now working together. We are also working with UAV companies). If not remedied these issues will lead to false confidence and performance differences between what the Plan believes will happen and what actually happens. If someone would like to see a demo or discuss this further please let me know.