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from the but-officer-my-car-meets-government-standards dept.
According to this news item, one of the holdups to the wide usage of autonomous cars is a lack of regulations that can be used to certify the control systems: http://www.automotivetestingtechnologyinternational.com/industry-blogs.php?BlogID=1973
Regulatory challenges
The influence of legislation around the world on the way tests will be performed in future is relatively small. For example, there are as yet no binding standards for driverless cars. This makes it a very complex task to make cars reliably safe for the global market. However, there are of course calls for safety levels, backed up by defined safety standards such as ASIL. They are a pre-requisite for planning reliability for investments in necessary new testing equipment. Crucial for the breakthrough of autonomous driving will be the speed at which global legislation can introduce the appropriate regulations. The sooner this happens, the faster the requirements for validating a completely driverless car can be implemented.
(bold added by submitter)
The same author suggests that the well established V-model for system development, validation and verification might be short-cut in some way to meet aggressive timing requirements -- which sounds like a great recipe for disaster to this AC. Have any SN readers had any involvement in this area?
A general reference on V-models is an interesting read. According to the article, it started at Hughes Aircraft in the 1960s (Los Angeles).
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Friday May 19 2017, @07:39PM (8 children)
When it does hit the courts, the autonomous car will likely have a lot of data to show that a human was at fault. Or maybe that something in the environment happened so fast that the system could not respond, and a human wouldn't have done any better.
What would be more interesting is a true failure in the autonomous car control system. One of those statistical classifiers fails to properly classify a pedestrian. I wonder if we'll ever see something like that?
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(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 19 2017, @07:57PM (6 children)
It'll be like trying to use footage from police body cams for anything besides showing the cop was complete right to shoot somebody. Or like big pharma only publishing results that make it seem like their shit works, etc.
You know the golden rule? He who has the gold, makes the rules.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday May 19 2017, @08:02PM (5 children)
I suspect the autonomous car makers have the gold.
I'm sure all of the data collected by the autonomous car will be available to the other party(ies) of the accident and their insurance companies and lawyers.
There is another failure mode of autonomous vehicles that I did not mention. Not a software failure. But a hardware failure. Oh, my, one of those ceramic caps quit working after being in the sun all day, and the car killed someone.
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(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday May 19 2017, @08:55PM
I'm sure the ceramic caps can "get the chair". They are kind of used to electricity though.. ;)
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday May 19 2017, @10:42PM (3 children)
Sudden attack of pedantry: ceramic caps will be A-OK, the electrolytic ones would have something to protest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by anubi on Saturday May 20 2017, @04:51AM (1 child)
Agreed. I have observed more SMPS fail due to increasing ESR in electrolytic capacitors than anything else.
I am very careful these days when designing with electrolytics to leave wide safety margins in for deterioration.
Otherwise, its like I shipped something that times out in five to ten years.
And fails in the most mysterious way.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by kaszz on Saturday May 20 2017, @01:58PM
Maybe it's better to design them such that they detect the electrolytic capacitor failure and refuse to commence operation? preferably with a LED indicating "solder new caps - blink, blink".
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday May 20 2017, @02:13PM
Ceramic caps are excellent unintended microphones.. :P
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday May 19 2017, @09:23PM
We already have a lot of data to show that big corporations and rich human will do anything to squeeze the last blood out of anyone else. And autonomous cars will be different..?