[SystemSafety] a public beta phase ???

[Les Chambers]

Peter
The concept of workshopping something is that you rollout ideas, people
critique them and in the process maybe you spark some creativity, new ideas
that is. These days our lives are absolutely ruled by the people with ideas.
Elon Musk is a classic example (I'm in awe of that guy despite the fact I
disagree with some of the things he does). Ideas are the last frontier, they
are the final currency, they will never be automated.
In 24 hours My Tesla Motor Club post attracted 930 views and 22 replies. It
looks like this is a very active forum biased more towards solutions than
the it'll-never-work-narrative - I find this refreshing.
The following three I found particularly informative:
----response one ------------------
Good reference: Wireless Vehicular Networks for Car Collision Avoidance
http://www.springer.com/us/book/9781441995629
----- response two -------------------
I'd favour a "radar reflector" of some sort - something that makes a
"vehicle" more "visible" to the sensors. Hopefully dirt-cheap, and thus
could be mandated for installation at the vehicle's next roadworth-test
(over here that is an annual test once a car reaches 3 year's old).
------ response three ------------------
"high-quality GPS SPS receivers provide better than 3.5 meter horizontal
accuracy."
So i think accuracy is not good enough.
If there is a car on the side of the road, your GPS receivers are closer
each other than 3.5 m and collision warning would give false alert.
------------------------

Have you got any ideas Peter?

Les


-----Original Message-----
From: systemsafety
[mailto:systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de] On Behalf Of
Peter Bernard Ladkin
Sent: Thursday, July 21, 2016 3:51 PM
To: systemsafety at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de
Subject: Re: [SystemSafety] a public beta phase ???

Les,

On 2016-07-21 01:44 , Les Chambers wrote:
> Ok, so I've posted my brilliant idea (below) on a Tesla Forum for the 
> Model S. .... It got 4 views in the first 10 seconds after posting. 
> Let's see how much interest it generates.

When I read your post I thought you were being facetious. But on the odd
chance you were being serious, a couple of comments.

First, fail-stop is a fairly well-understood mechanism, of limited use. It
is going to be of particularly limited use in road traffic, not only because
of its functional limitations but also because of the latency. People's
reaction time is between 1 and 2 seconds (this has been fairly well measured
with pilots). This is quite long enough to get you into an irrecoverable
situation in road traffic.

Second, the Tesla S is equipped with such a device. It's called "steering
wheel and brake activation" and it didn't save Mr. Brown.

Third, designing reliable GPS locator mechanisms, even for steadily-moving
objects, is tricky. For example,
http://www.icao.int/APAC/Meetings/2015%20ADSBSITF14/IP04_AUS%20AI.4%20-%20Bo
eing%20787%20ADS-B%20deficiency.pdf
For general comments about the suitability of GPS-based devices for
high-resolution terrestrial use, see
http://www.raeng.org.uk/publications/reports/global-navigation-space-systems
, the report of a Working Group chaired by Martyn. There is quite a bit
about trustworthiness and lack of it.

Fourth, car manufacturers have been working on such "sense and avoid"
mechanisms quite intensely for well over a decade. I recall a talk at
SAFECOMP 2004 in Potsdam from Daimler R&D guru Ralf Herrtwich on the
trustworthiness of automotive telematics. He was talking about car-to-car
stuff. It was mostly radar/lidar/sonar based, for what I take to be obvious
reasons, namely that you don't have to worry in quite the same way about the
trustworthiness of your sensorics as you do about the trustworthiness of
third-party information such as GPS positioning of others. I doubt if that
has changed at all.

I asked him about what they were doing about vulnerable road users and
didn't get the impression that they were doing much at all at that point.

PBL

Prof. Peter Bernard Ladkin, Bielefeld, Germany MoreInCommon Je suis Charlie
Tel+msg +49 (0)521 880 7319  www.rvs-bi.de