Nexyad explains in this video the key notion of driving risk. From zero risk when the car is sleeping into the garage to 100% risk when driving behaviour is by far not adapted to a particular road context.
SafetyNex estimates driving risk 20 times per second, during driving (real time).
On the following figure, you can see risk rising when approaching a stop sign with an inappropriate car speed :
Now with a slower speed profile :
And finally the “good” safe speed profile :
This estimation is computed INSIDE the local device (inside the car). Current implementation is on smartphones (IOS and Android), then computing of risk is completely done INSIDE the smartphone : that makes SafetyNex compliant with all driver’s privacu regulations and laws in Europe.
Applications :
. insurance and fleets : vocal alert when risk is too high. As you can see, it lets time to slow down and avoid potential accident. This leads to a reduction of accident rate and a reduction of personal injuries. Of course, risk values can be recorded to do stats (risk profiles) for UBI (Usage Based Insurance) applications.
. Automotive : same application is navigation with risk alerts. But with a robotized braking system (ADAS), it is possible to trigger braking with risk value. In such a case, it is not emergency braking but rather anticipation braking.
In addition, it is possible, in the case of HAD (highly Automated Driving) car, to control speed (longitudinal part of auto pilot) very easily : “if risk too high, then slow down”, “if risk is low, then accelerate until risk becomes the max value you accept or until you’re at the speed limit”. You write your autopilot with very few lines of code !
As many people know now, NEXYAD has been developing the first real time driving risk assessment system called SafetyNex.
SafetyNex is currently available in B2B :
. as a smartphone App (Android and IOS)
. as a real time driving risk assessment API that OEMs and Insurers may integrate into their own smartphone App or into their own telematics or ADAS device (Android, iOS, Linux, Windows).
This real time driving risk assessment module has been validated on 50 million km, and applies proven methods for risk assessment, using, for instance, the Frank E. BIRD “safety triangle” concept, and running in real time a knowledge-based system AI that has been built by NEXYAD since 2001. It took 15 years to extract thousands of road safety knowledge atoms from experts of 19 countries. Some of this knowledge is directly operational, some is deep knowledge on detection theory (a mix of Information Theory and Knowledge on Human Brain abilities). And of course, SafetyNex also applies fundamental knowledge on mechanics (braking abilities, …) including complex issues such as grip for example.
A tough work was to be made in order to build such a knowledge-based system that could cope with “gradual truth” and could run a complex knowledge-based model in real time. Implementation uses fuzzy sets both for facts and knowledge representation, and competition between knowledge atoms uses deep Possibility Theory concepts. Of course, SafetyNex deals with dynamic problems (road accident, with distances, speed, …) and had to find a proper representation of TIME. NEXYAD was not very quick to develop all those solutions and to integrate them into a product called SafetyNex : SafetyNex is proposed for sale since Jan 2017 (first R&D on SafetyNex : 2001). But the result is efficient : you can run SafetyNex on your smartphone while driving your car and see how it helps you to drive much safer without alerting for nothing.
This unique technology places now NEXYAD in the center of the worldwide telematics/adas/data collecting race for car insurers.
So let’s see what are the main applications of SafetyNex for car insurers :
. PREVENTION : SafetyNex alerts (vocal alert) driver BEFORE a dangerous situation, letting time to slow down and avoid accident. It is the best prevention tool ever : studies showed that 20% of accident can be avoided (then also 20% of personal injuries and fatalities !!!). SafetyNex is the ONLY tool that runs in real time inside the smartphone or inside the telematics/adas devices and then is the ONLY module that can alert driver (all the other systems apply scoring methods on the cloud …). This is a major differenciation for SafetyNex : avoid accident ! Observation of drivers using SafetyNex showed that they change their way of driving in order to mimnimize the number of alerts, then they change their driving behaviour in the long term.
. COMMUNICATION : SafetyNex gives driver a score of Safe Driving after every trip. This is a positive way of presenting risk and driver appreciate being given a gold cup for his/her high safe driving score. You can imagine many ways to communicate for car insurers. Example : every year, sort all drivers (customers) of a country, find the best (highest SafetyNex safe driving score) and give a huge incentive (offer a brand new car, for instance). Such an incentive tranforms the car insurer’s customers set into a community that tries to drive better, and you can build of course a social network for experience share and local challenges … etc. This is a simple and very concrete use of digital technology both for getting better profits and for saving lives. Marketing executives call this ‘the Nudge Theory”. SafetyNex is a natural candidate for applying this Nudge Theory.
. KNOWLEDGE : car insurers only know about risk by accident observation. Although the theory of Frank E. BIRD (safety triangle) shows that the proper variable to observe would be what is called “near miss” or “quasi accident”. SafetyNex alerts every time that driver’s behaviour leads to a quasi accident situation. Then car insurers can use SafetyNex to build this new knowledge and sort and cross all their variables with this new notion. Actuaries will quickly find clever ways to use those new sets of data and you will be surprised to see how productive data scientists can be when they have a direct access to new qualified huge set of data.
. USAGE BASED INSURANCE : Of course, SafetyNex is THE perfect tool for UBI. At the end of every trip, SafetyNex sends data (statistics) : usage (urban, road, highway, time, duration, km, postal code, etc …) and risk (risk profiles). Then it is very easy to propose Usage Based princings (‘as you drive” or “how you drive” etc).
It is important to notice that real time abilities of SafetyNex also simplify business models :
. Anyway car insurer does effective prevention with SafetyNex : it is only needed to avoid few personal injuries and fatalities to “pay” the deployment of SafetyNex. That’s the key of SafetyNex deployment : SafetyNex alerts driver WHILE DRIVING and BEFORE danger, then many accident are avoided … then many personal injuries are avoided. If you know the price of a personal injury in you car insurance, then you see that SafetyNex price was made in order to let you get a fair ROI on this issue.
. Communication (incentive) is then already paid by the number of avoided personal injuries !
. and in addition, car insurer gets qualified data : for knowledge acquisition and UBI opportunities study.
As a conclusion, we can remember main facts :
. SafetyNex real time abilities make it VERY DIFFERENT from any other risk assessment solutions (using stats and data science in the cloud) because then SafetyNex ACTS on driving behaviour BEFORE accident and then lets avoid many accidents.
. Prevention effect of SafetyNex finances it deployment cost.
. Knowledge extraction and UBI opportunities business models can be done without stress as SafetyNex already gives a fair ROI to car indurer.
Some OEMs and insurers already started to integrate SafetyNex API into their smartphone App or into their telematics/adas device.
It is now time to move forward to the 21st century with digital insurance.
A lot of professionals that must cope with road safety observe accident through statistics : it seems to be normal to think that safety is low where there are a lot of accidents and that safety is high where there are few accidents.
This reality tends to make people confuse the two notions : risk and accident.
And since you stay at the statistic level, then it works : if 99% of people that played russian roulette more than 50 times have died (accident), then you can say that russian roulette is risky (risk).
Insurance companies, fleet managers, have taken into account those statistics, in order to estimate their future costs, and compute their pricing.
But now, digital connected devices are available at the very individual and local level : telematics (professional devices installed into cars), smartphones, connected car, can estimate the driving behaviour in real time and they know exactly where you drive.
Then, what this new technology brings to risk assessment ? and can you still apply at the individual level the ideas that was set at a population (statistics) level ?
That question was studied in 1969 by an American University Professor that was also a researcher for the company “Insurance of North America”, Frank E. BIRD, and a key notion was then used : the “incident” or “near miss accident” or “quasi accident”. It was shown that the risk you take does not lead to accident but to “quasi-accident”. Indeed, even in very risky situations, accident can be avoided most of the time at the very last second ! Frank E. BIRD worked on what was called “The Triangle of Risk” or “Safety Triangle”
Sometimes, you do not have luck … and then you have an accident instead of having a quasi-accident.
Example of Statitical Relationship in Risk Assessment : from Behaviour to Fatalities
Then accident is the confluence of “risk you take” and “bad luck”. It is interesting to notice that, if you do not study the individual and local (in space and time) level, so if you consider a large population of drivers during a long duration, then “bad luck” automatically disappears… and so risk can be measured by observation of accident. But at the individual and local levels, risk cannot be measure by observing accident.
It is interesting to read about Safety Triangle and then have a clear idea of links between RISK, ACCIDENT, SEVERE PERSONAL INJURIES.
In road Safety concerns, researchers and experts have been working during 50 years on this concept of quasi-accident and they accumulated data and knowledge about this key notion. Let us resume the russian roulette comparison : pulling the trigger is the quasi-accident … and sometimes you die (accident). But even before playing such a “game” you KNOW that it is risky.
The knowledge of risk is represented by a collection of cause-effect relationships.
There is a knowledge-based artificial intelligence system that gathered the knowledge from road safety experts and researchers (that work mainly on road infrastructure) and that is now available in order to assess driving risk in real time : SafetyNex developed by the company NEXYAD. SafetyNex is the “thermometer” of driving risk and it alerts the driver BEFORE the dangerous situation, letting time to slow down and then potentially to avoid accident, to reduce severity (less personal severe injuries), …
Obviously, markets are :
. car insurance (prevention, severity, UBI)
. fleet management (prevention, reduction of costs, fit in regulations and laws)
But even the automotive can take benefit of suche a real time driving risk assessment module :
. intelligent navigation with risk vocal alerts
. automatic triggering of braking for ADAS (if risk too high then slow down)
. driverless cars : giving to the artificial intelligence that drives the car the perception of the risk it takes…
SafetyNex opens the door to a new generation of onboard applications for every field of automotive sector that is concerned with risk and safety.
Read more
30th Nov 2016, seven high-tech startups had to pitch in front of almost all French Insurance Companies. This was organized by the Cercle LAB (Laboratoire Assurance Banque), at ALLIANZ tower (Paris La Défense) : “colloque prospective annuel du cercle LAB”.
NEXYAD was introduced to Cercle LAB by the competitiveness cluster FINANCE & INNOVATION.
It was an interesting challenge and the jury had to pick only ONE startup from seven talented ones, to give the special prize “coup de coeur des assureurs”.
Gérard Yahiaoui pitching at Allianz Tower “Coup de Cœur des Assureurs” Diploma
NEXYAD pitched on SafetyNex : a smartphone App for real time onboard driving risk assessment (with vocal alerts that warn the driver before a potential danger), that can reduce accident rate by 20%.
Winner : NEXYAD !!!
We thank all the insurers that came to this high tech day that gave a broadchurch view on research and development for Insurance applications (artificial intelligence, deep learning, iot, blockchain, telematics, …), we thank Pôle FINANCE INNOVATION & Cercle LAB.
NEXYAD is member of MOV’EO, and FINANCE INNOVATION.
General ergonomics of SafetyNex has changed and after each run you have immediate results of your driving score with Gold Cup if you are safe.
SafetyNex comprehensive HMI
SafetyNex the Smartphone App that revolutionizes automotive world : Autonomous car, Car insurance, Fleet management, use of Telematics for retail.
SafetyNex is a smartphone application developed and marketed by NEXYAD and which reduces by 20% the number of road accidents [1]. This application is of direct interest to many application targets.
– Driver
– Insurance Companies
– Car Manufacturers
– Fleet Managers
– Mass Marketers
SafetyNex, une App SmartPhone qui révolutionne le monde de l’automobile : véhicules intelligents, assurance auto, gestion de flottes, utilisation du digital pour le retail
SafetyNex est une application Smartphone développée et commercialisée par NEXYAD, et qui permet de réduire de 20% le nombre d’accidents de la route [1]. Cette application présente un intérêt applicatif direct pour de nombreuses cibles.
– Le conducteur
– L’assureur automobile
– Le constructeur automobile
– Le gestionnaire de flotte auto
– Le grand distributeur
Safety First — Security Will Be Big
An interesting post about Road Safety in Nexyad-Adas Blog.
To read more : http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/02/the-top-five-trends-for-the-connected-car-in-2016/
NEXYAD is waiting for that since 2010 as they’ve been developing a module that measures in real time the risk of accident and then can help to prenvent from accident (car manufacturer application) and/or monitor the driver (insurance companies application). This module is called SafetyNex and is the only one that estimates road safety correlated to accident (tested, validated, proven).
To read more and watch demos : https://nexyad.net/Automotive-Transportation/?page_id=441
Les Compagnies d’Assurances, les Constructeurs Automobiles et leur équipementiers ont tous des raisons pour mesurer le comportement du conducteur. Cela a déjà commencé, avec les boîtiers des assureurs dans le cadre du fameux “pay how you drive” : l’idée des compagnies d’assurance automobile est de moduler les tarifs en fonction de la dangerosité des conduites : un boîter embarqué dans le véhicule (ou une App sur le smartphone du conducteur) note le style de conduite (en utilisant les accéléromètres intégrés dans l’électronique), et lui attribue un degré de risque d’accidents.
Or, le style de conduite (exemple : freinages sévères, ou au contraire conduite coulée) n’est pas corrélé au risque d’accidents. Cela a été démontré formellement au travers de programmes de recherche collaborative (en particulier dans le cadre du programme national PREDIT sur la Sécurité Routière), et cela correspond aussi au “bon sens” : quelqu’un qui grille un stop sans faire de freinage sévère, sans accélérer comme un fou, tranquillement, à 40 km/h, est extrêmement dangereux et son comportement de conduite est fortement accidentogène, alors qu’il conduit “calmement”.
De même quelqu’un qui ne tient absolument pas compte des passages piétons (y compris lorsqu’un piéton est engagé) et le passent tranquillement sans freiner on un comportement, d’une part interdit par le code de la route, et d’autre part très accidentogène (avec des accidents mortels car il s’agit d’accident “véhicule vs vulnérable”).
Tous les boîtiers automobiles actuels qui utilisent le style de conduite comme clé de dangerosité sont donc absolument inefficaces et remontent une information fausse.
Tant qu’on ne rapproche pas le style de conduite du contexte géométrique, géographique, météo, état du conducteur etc …, on ne peux absolument rien conclure d’un style de conduite, à part pour la partie dite “Eco” (plus on conduit brutalement, moins on conserve l’inertie du véhicule, plus on consomme de carburant, et donc plus on rejette aussi de CO2).
To read more : http://www.nexyad-adas.com/archives/2016/01/05/33130831.html
Some drivers are quiet but still dangerous (in a road safety point of view) :
Most people think that brutal drivers (strong braking, etc …) are dangerous. The hypothesis is that they do not anticipate enough and then they are
led to brake very strongly. Many Insurance Companies developped their own onboard “dirving style” estimation that scores this kind of hypothesis.
To read more : Nexyad-ADAS
It is now easy to implement a Driving Behaviour Scoring module in order to estimate road safety and eco-driving and know the driver better. Useful in pay how you drive applications (insurance pricing).
http://www.nexyad-adas.com/archives/2015/11/28/32992618.html
SafetyNex by NEXYAD and EcoGyzer by NOMADIC SOLUTIONS together to estimate the Driver Behaviour Signature.
We ask an experimented driver to drive the same path four times with a different behaviour.
Here we show the Sportive-Safe Driver :
The Sportive-Safe Driver is not Eco, but he is safe most of the time. Despite, he accelerates strongly, he slows down when he arrives to intersections and pedestrian pathways. He has only four points in the red area of the signature mapping to compare with the Quiet-Dangerous Driver seen in an earlier news
SafetyNex by NEXYAD and EcoGyzer by NOMADIC SOLUTIONS together to estimate the Driver Behaviour Signature.
We ask an experimented driver to drive the same path four times with a different behaviour.
Here we show the Quiet-Dangerous Driver :
The Quiet-Dangerous Driver is always Eco, he doesn’t accelerate too hard and he doesn’t brake strongly, but he passes through intersections and pedestrian pathways without slowing down… He is potentialy Dangerous.
SafetyNex by NEXYAD and EcoGyzer by NOMADIC SOLUTIONS together to estimate the Driver Behaviour Signature.
We ask an experimented driver to drive the same path four times with a different behaviour.
Here we show the Bad Driver :
ESTIMATION EMBARQUEE DU RISQUE ROUTIER CORRELEE A L’ACCIDENTOLOGIE :
UN PROBLEME ENTIEREMENT RESOLU ET UN PRODUIT SUR ETAGERE DISPONIBLE
par NEXYAD
INTRODUCTION
Mesurer la sécurité routière en fonction du contexte vécu par le conducteur est un sujet qui intéresse :
. les constructeurs automobiles, qui peuvent informer le conducteur d’éventuels dangers
. les développeurs du véhicule autonome qui ont besoin de prouver que le robot de conduite est
capable de minimiser le risque routier
. les gestionnaires de flottes et les assureurs qui souhaitent mesurer le risque pris par les conducteurs
. les gestionnaires de l’infrastructure routière qui cherchent à aménager les routes pour baisser le risque
d’accident
La société NEXYAD a développé un module embarqué, SafetyNex, qui permet d’estimer en temps réel le risque.
LES IDEES PRECONCUES CONCERNANT LE STYLE DE CONDUITE ET L’ACCIDENTOLOGIE
Beaucoup d’essais ont été réalisés ou en cours de réalisation, surtout par les assureurs et les gestionnaires
de flottes, pour mesurer ce qui s’appelle « le style de conduite ».
L’hypothèse est que certains conducteurs sont plus « nerveux » que d’autres, et que cela a un impact sur
l’accidentologie : ceux qui accélèrent ou freinent assez souvent brutalement seraient des « mauvais conducteurs », alors que ceux qui ont une conduite plus tranquille seraient des « bons » conducteurs.
Cette hypothèse est contredite par les faits. Il n’y a pas de liaison statistique entre le style de conduite et
l’accidentologie.
Formellement, chacun conçoit très bien que si un conducteur conduit très tranquillement, sans freiner, sans
accélérer, à 30 km/h, et qu’il grille un stop … son style de conduite est tranquille mais très accidentogène.
On voit alors qu’au-delà de la liaison statistique éventuelle, il ne peut y avoir de relation de cause à effet.
Toutes les expérimentations qui ont été menées ont conduit à ce résultat.
Toutes celles qui seront menées, basées sur le seuillage plus ou moins intelligent des valeurs d’accélérations
sont vouées à l’échec. Il ne faut pas confondre éco-conduite et conduite sûre.
Le style de conduite en lui-même ne peut être exploité qu’en regard :
. de l’infrastructure sur laquelle le véhicule évolue
. du trafic (présence d’autres usagers de la route)
. des conditions météo (visibilité, adhérence, …)
. du niveau d’attention du conducteur (distraction, hypovigilance, endormissement, …)
NEXYAD a développé une solution évolutive capable de prendre en compte tous ces facteurs.
SafetyNex en version « labo » est donc capable d’estimer le risque lié à la conduite de façon complète.
La version 2.1 de SafetyNex, en cours de déploiement, prend en compte l’adéquation du style de conduite au type et à la forme de l’infrastructure (ruptures sur les itinéraires, virages, passages piétons, croisements, …).
Cette version a été volontairement réduite car elle donne déjà une corrélation du risque estimé avec
l’accidentologie de plus de 90%, et elle est déployable à très bas coût :
. sur smart phone
. sur boîtier électronique (développé par un équipementier automobile de rang 1, sans utilisation de la prise OBD)
CORRELATION ENTRE L’ESTIMATION DU RISQUE PAR SafetyNex V2.1 ET L’ACCIDENTOLOGIE
NEXYAD a participé à des programmes de recherche collaborative depuis 2001, et a pu de cette manière collaborer avec des experts de l’équipement des routes.
En particulier, le programme de recherche SARI a conduit à des travaux de détection de ce que les experts appellent une « rupture sur l’itinéraire ». Par exemple, un virage peut constituer un grand danger lorsqu’il arrive derrière une longue ligne droite, alors que le même virage ne sera pas dangereux sur une route de montagne.
NEXYAD a publié un article lors de la conférence sur la Sécurité routière le 6 Mai 2010 à Paris : PRAC 2010 Prévention des Risques et Aide à La Conduite, Session 1 Caractérisation du risque routier vs. infrastructure « Evaluation du risque routier pour l’aide à la conduite ou le diagnostic de l’infrastructure », Johann Brunet, Pierre Da Silva Dias, Gérard Yahiaoui, PRAC 2010, Mai 2010, Paris.
Les travaux qui ont conduit à cette publication ont été intégrés au produit SafetyNex. Cela signifie que par construction, le risque estimé par SafetyNex est corrélé à l’accidentologie. Cela est vrai par construction, et NEXYAD a réalisé des essais sur routes, en ville, sur autoroutes, en zones urbaines, et a pu valider ce résultat.
PRINCIPE DE FONCTIONNEMENT DE SafetyNex V2.1
SafetyNex est un système à base de connaissances (système expert) qui applique les règles des experts de l’équipement. Ces règles sont rangées dans une base de règles sous une forme mathématique qui permet de les adapter de manière graduelle aux caractéristiques réelles de l’infrastructure.
Les entrées obligatoires sont :
. la carte de navigation et le GPS : afin de scruter la forme et les caractéristiques de l’infrastructure située en aval du véhicule (virages avec leur rayon de courbure, points d’intérêt de type passage piéton, croisement de routes, etc …)
. la vitesse instantanée du véhicule.
A partir de ces deux entrées, SafetyNex évalue, par application des règles, l’adéquation de la vitesse d’approche du véhicule en fonction du niveau de difficulté et de danger d’accidents de l’infrastructure.
Un conducteur sportif qui accélère fort, freine fort, mais passe les endroits dangereux à faible vitesse aura un risque faible.
Un conducteur tranquille qui grille un stop à 30 km/h mais qui n’accélère ni ne freine presque jamais aura un risque très élevé.
On le voit, SafetyNex n’est pas corrélé à la valeur absolue des accélérations, mais à l’adaptation FACTUELLE de la vitesse au type de difficulté de l’infrastructure, à chaque instant.
Des entrées supplémentaires (optionnelles) sont déjà prévue, et peuvent permettre de moduler l’estimation du risque pour la rendre encore plus précise :
. l’adhérence mobilisable (si l’on dispose d’un capteur, à connecter à l’entrée prévue à cet effet de SafetyNex)
. la météo (si l’on dispose de l’information spatio temporelle, à connecter à l’entrée prévue à cet effet de SafetyNex)
. la visibilité atmosphérique (si l’on dispose d’une mesure adéquate : exemple : une caméra et le module de mesure de visibilité atmosphérique VisiNex)
. la distance à d’éventuels obstacles ‘si l’on dispose d’une estimation adéquates : exemple : un radar, un lidar, ou une caméra avec les modules RoadNex et ObstaNex)
. un coefficient de distraction du conducteur (si l’on observe le conducteur avec une caméra et/ou si l’on surveille l’activité de son téléphone mobile, etc …)
Toutes ces entrées supplémentaires sont déjà prévues dans SafetyNex, mais elles augmentent le coût de déploiement de la solution en impliquant des capteurs (caméra, …) et de la puissance de calcul supplémentaire en amont de SafetyNex pour traiter les signaux et les images issus des capteurs optionnels.
L’utilisation de SafetyNex V2.1 avec uniquement les entrées obligatoires permet déjà une corrélation très forte du risque estimé avec l’accidentologie. Nous préconisons d’implanter cette version, déjà infiniment plus efficace que toutes les mesures embarquées que NEXYAD a pu découvrir dans son activité de veille.
L’intérêt de SafetyNex est que l’avenir est déjà assuré : la loi de Moore faisant baisser rapidement le coût de l’électronique et de l’informatique embarquées, SafetyNex est prêt à accueillir les entrées supplémentaires, dès que les utilisateurs voudront intégrer les caméras et les capteurs.
UTILISATIONS TYPES DE SafetyNex V2.1
. Sociétés d’assurances :
– Pay how you Drive
– Modulation prédictive du bonus malus : le même accident dans les mêmes conditions ne conduit pas aux mêmes conclusions en fonction de l’historique cumulé et de l’enregistrement des dernières secondes du risque de SafetyNex.
– Génération muette d’une variable de risque, corrélée à l’accidentologie, pour aider les actuaires à affiner la tarification
. Les gestionnaires de flottes
. Equipementiers automobile :
– Alarme sur risque
– Navigation intelligente capable de conseiller le conducteur
. Ingénieurs et chercheurs du véhicule autonome :
– Evaluation de la qualité de conduite générée par le robot
CONCLUSION
L’estimation embarquée du risque routier est aujourd’hui un problème résolu par un produit sur étagère, SafetyNex, déployable dès maintenant
à bas coût sur :
. téléphones mobiles
. boitier électronique d’un équipementier de rang 1 de l’automobile.
Et déjà prévu pour intégrer (dès que le coût est jugé acceptable) des capteurs d’adhérence et des caméras (par exemple) pour estimer le trafic et la visibilité atmosphérique, ainsi que des informations telles que la météo et la distraction du conducteur.
Tous ces éléments sont déjà traités par le système de règles de SafetyNex, si bien que l’outil peut évoluer rapidement à chaque baisse de coût des éléments capteurs et de la puissance de calcul rattachée à ces éléments capteurs.
Pour déployer SafetyNex, contacter NEXYAD : Olivier BENEL obenel@nexyad.net 01 39 04 13 60
REAL TIME ONBOARD RISK ESTIMATION CORRELATED WITH ROAD ACCIDENT :
AN ENTIRELY SOLVED PROBLEM AND A PRODUCT ALREADY AVAILABLE FOR DEPLOYMENT
by NEXYAD
INTRODUCTION
Measuring road safety in the context experienced by the driver is a topic of interest for several activities :
. car manufacturers, who can inform the driver of potential dangers
. autonomous vehicle developers who need to prove that the driving actually minimizes risk of accident.
. fleet managers and insurance companies who wish to measure the risk taken by drivers (how they drive)
. managers of road infrastructure that alway change infrastructure to adapt and lower the risk of accident
The company NEXYAD has been developing since 2001 an embedded onboard module, SafetyNex, to
estimate in real time the risk of accident.
PRECONCEIVED IDEAS ABOUT ROAD ACCIDENTS AND DRIVING STYLE
Many trials have been completed or in progress, particularly by insurance companies and fleet managers,
In order to measure what is called the “driving style”.
The assumption is that some drivers are more “nervous” than others, and that this has an impact on the accident: those that speed up or slow down quite often brutally would be “bad drivers” while those with a quieter driving style would be “good” drivers.
This assumption is contradicted by the facts. There is no statistical connection between the driving style and
the accident.
Formally, one can easily fancy very well that if a driver operates very quietly, without slowing, without
accelerating at 30 km / h, and if this driver passes through a stop road sign without braking … then the driving style is quiet but very accident-prone.
We then see that beyond the possible statistical link (that doesn’t exist), there can be no relationship of cause and effect.
All experiments that were conducted led to this result.
All those that will be conducted, based on more or less intelligent thresholding of the acceleration values are doomed to failure.
Do not confuse eco-driving and safe driving.
Driving style cannot be interpreted itself without context description :
. infrastructure shape and characteristic, on which the vehicle is traveling
. traffic (presence of other road users)
. weather conditions (visibility, grip, …)
. level of driver vigilance (distraction, drowsiness, sleep …)
NEXYAD has developed a scalable solution capable of taking into account all these factors.
SafetyNex is therefore able to estimate the risk of driving using all those variables.
Version 2.1 of SafetyNex, under deployment, takes into account the adequacy of driving style with the type and shape of infrastructure (breaks on route characteristics, turns, pedestrian crossings, intersections …).
This version has been intentionally reduced to « driving style vs infratructure characteristics », because it already gives a 90% correlation with accident and because this version is deployable at very low cost:
. on smart phone
. electronic device (developed by an automotive tier one company), without using the OBD socket)
CORRELATION OF RISK OF ACCIDENT ESTIMATED BY SafetyNex V2.1 AND ACCIDENT
NEXYAD participated in collaborative research programs since 2001, and worked then with experts from the road equipment.
In particular, SARI research program led to detecting what experts call “Break on the route characteristics”. For example, a turn with a big curve may be a danger when it arrives behind a long straight line, while the same curve will not be dangerous bend on a mountain road.
NEXYAD published a paper at the conference on road safety May 6, 2010 in Paris: PRAC 2010
Risk Prevention and Save The Conduct, Session 1 Characterization of road risk vs. infrastructure
« Evaluation du risque routier pour l’aide à la conduite ou le diagnostic de l’infrastructure », Johann Brunet, Pierre Da Silva Dias, Gérard Yahiaoui, PRAC 2010, Mai 2010, Paris.
The work that led to this publication were integrated in the available product SafetyNex. This means that by construction, the risk estimated by SafetyNex is correlated to the accident. This is true by construction, and NEXYAD conducted tests on roads, downtown, on motorways in urban areas, etc … and was able to validate this result.
PRINCIPLE OF SafetyNex V2.1
SafetyNet is a knowledge based system (expert system) which applies rules of the experts of the equipment.
These rules are stored in a rules data base in a mathematical form that can adapt to gradual actual characteristics of the infrastructure.
Required inputs are :
. the navigation map and the GPS: To examine the shape and type of the infrastructure located downstream of the vehicle (turns with their radius of curvature, points of interest like pedestrian crossing, crossroads, etc …)
. the instantaneous vehicle speed
From these two inputs, SafetyNex evaluates, by applying the rules, the adequacy of the driving speed of the vehicle to difficulty and danger of infrastructure.
A sporty driver accelerating hard, braking hard, but passing dangerous places at low speed will be scored with a low risk.
A quiet driver that passes through a stop road sing at 30 km / h without braking will be scored with a high risk.
A brutal braking cannot be considered as « bad driving » if it is necessary to avoid an accident …
We see then, that SafetyNex risk estimation is not correlated with the absolute value of acceleration, but with ACTUAL speed adaptation to difficulty and danger of the infrastructure, in real time.
Additional inputs (optional) are already scheduled, and can afford to modulate the estimated risk to increase acuracy of SafetyNex :
. grip (if one has a sensor to connect to the input provided for the purpose of SafetyNex)
. weather report (if one has the temporal and spatial information)
. atmospheric visibility (if one has adequate measure: example: a camera and the measuring module of atmospheric visibility : VisiNex)
. distance to potential obstacles (if it has an adequate sensor : eg radar, lidar, or camera with RoadNex ObstaNex modules)
. a driver distraction factor (if the driver is observed with a camera and / or if one monitors the activity of mobile phone, etc …)
All these additional inputs are already ready to be used by SafetyNex but of course, they increase the cost of deployment, involving sensors (camera, …) and additional computing power before getting in SafetyNex to process signals and images from the optional sensors.
Using SafetyNex V2.1 with only the required inputs already allows a very high correlation of the estimated risk with the accident. We recommend to implement this version, already infinitely more effective than any other onboard measurements.
The interest of SafetyNex is that the future is already assured: Moore’s Law by rapidly lowering the cost of electronics and embedded computing, SafetyNex is ready to process the additional inputs, when users want to integrate cameras and sensors.
TYPICAL USES OF SafetyNet V2.1
. Insurance Companies:
– Pay how you drive
– Predictive modeling of bonus malus: the same accident under the same conditions does not lead to the same conclusions based on accumulated historical and recording the last seconds risk SafetyNex
– Generation of a dumb risk variable, correlated to the accident, to help actuaries refine pricing (big data)
. Fleet managers
. Automotive equipment suppliers:
– Alarm on risk
– Intelligent Navigation able to advise the driver
. Engineers and researchers from autonomous vehicle:
– Driving Quality Assessment generated by the robot
CONCLUSION
Embedded estimation of road risk of accident is now a problem completely solved by a product available for deployment, SafetyNex.
SafetyNex is deployable at Low cost on:
. mobile phones
. electronic device of a Automotive Tier 1 supplier (without plugging the OBD).
And SafetyNex already planned to integrate (once the cost is acceptable) grip sensors and cameras (for example) to estimate traffic and atmospheric visibility, as well as information such as weather and driver distraction.
All of these are already processed by SafetyNex rules based system, so that the tool can quickly evoluate with each decrease in the cost of sensor elements and cost of computing power needed to compute sensors outputs.
To deploy SafetyNex, contact NEXYAD: Olivier BENEL obenel@nexyad.net +33 1 39 04 13 60
How to use SafetyNex V2.1 for Insurance applications, and for
Automotive applications (ADAS & autonomous vehicle)
by NEXYAD
INTRODUCTION: Description of 2.1 SafetyNex
SafetyNex is a software module proposed by the French company NEXYAD. This module aims to match the driving style (acceleration, vehicle speed) with the danger characteristics of infrastructure.
SafetyNex development started in 2001 and benefited from three national collaborative research programs (PREDIT and FUI) that allowed NEXYAD modeling expertise of road equipment notation accident-prone infrastructure.
Indeed, the accident-prone nature of a local infrastructure, cannot be deduced from statistical studies on this local element, for the simple reason that accidents are rare events.A driver has one accident every 70 000 km.
To investigate the accident, the experts of the equipment mainly use two methods:
. aggregated statistics at national and European level : it provides large numbers of accidents and thus make statistics relevant. But heterogeneous infrastructure through Europe makes it difficult to project results on a local infrastructure that has its own characteristics, sometimes far from the average characteristic in France or Europe.
. the observation of “near misses” or « almost accident » as they are numerous : most potential accidents can be nearly avoided by drivers. Experts of infrastructure developed observatories for those danger situations and it brings useful information.
From these elements, the experts of the infrastructure have published a set of rules for predicting accidents, based on characteristics, the accident-prone characters of a piece of infrastructure.
For example, a bend may be accident-prone if its radius greatly shortens in its middle (curve which closes), but a “normal” curve may become dangerous if it comes after a long distance of straight line (this is called “break out on the pathway “).
NEXYAD integrated all these rules in SafetyNex and has made numerous tests on real world to validate the efficiency of scoring danger.
SafetyNex V2.1 reads on-board navigation map that gives infrastructure characteristics , downstream of the vehicle, and then SafetyNex scores the relevancy of the driving style, knowing the shape of the road ahead and other important things (pedestrian pathway, …).
Note: in a higher version (already being tested), SafetyNex may also reflect the presence of other users on the road (cars, trucks, bicycles, motorcycles, pedestrians …) by coupling it to RoadNex (road detection by camera), and ObstaNex (obstacles detection by camera).
But this version will require to have appropriate computing power to process videos. The Moore law lets us think i twill be easy and cheap in 2 or 3 years.
For now, we think that adaptation of the driving type with infrastructure characteristics meets a real issue and SafetyNex V2.1 is the only available (and for sale) module in the world for performing this function.
The output computed by SafetyNex is the road safety risk, between 0 and 100%, at every moment.
It is possible to use SafetyNex in real time to alert the driver.
It also may be used off-line, aggregating the risk : SafetyNex used to complete big data with revelant variables to study the road safety risk, in a statistical way.
SafetyNex is available in three types of running environments:
. PC under Windows or Linux
. Electronic device of an Automotive Tier One Company, for the new vehicles and aftermarket
. smartphones
SafetyNex V2.1 FOR USE OF INSURANCE
Insurance Companies have several ways to use SafetyNex V2.1:
. free distribution of the SafetyNex App for smartphones to all their customers :
In this case, the business model is to seek partners who want to reduce their cost of acquiring customers online.
In fact, when you divide the advertising budget of a major retailer (Amazon, Fnac, Darty, …) by the number of purchases, there are about 30 euros (cost of a customer).
The idea of NEXYAD then is to propose a serious game that “gives” points to drivers who behave well.
These points are converted into “coupons” with one or more distributors. The drivers will go on the website in order to validate coupons by purchasing products. In doing so (spotted digitally with flash code …), the distributor will give back 15 euros : 7,5 euros for the cupons, and 7,5 euros for the Insurance Company that distributed the NEXYAD App to their millions of customers. The insurer therefore makes money and share revenue with NEXYAD and its technology partners.
This solution is particularly interesting for several reasons:
. the insurance company earns money directly on millions of purchases.
. drivers do their best to earn coupons, and therefore change their driving behavior to achieve it.
The insurer therefore modifies in a sustainable way the driving style, and contributes to the decline in the number of accidents. The Communications Department of the the Insurance company may use this fact for communicating it to the public.
. the largest distributors lower their customers acquisition costs and they can then lower their advertising budget
. the driver improves self safety, and is able to purchase more.
. distribution in an electronic device :
The electronic device has the advantage of being still operational without driver intervention.
This solution is particularly interesting for business fleets, and allows to quickly and efficiently initiate a type of pricing system “pay how you drive” that may be seen as an extension of the bonus / malus system, but with a predictive power.
. constitution of big data for actuaries:
Risk can be recorded onboard, or in aggregate, giving statisticians a new variable for more accuracy on pricing.
SafetyNex V2.1 FOR USE IN ADAS AND AUTONOMOUS CAR APPLICATIONS
The road safety risk measurement is of course interesting for automotive applications :
. SafetyNex read the shape of infrastructure downstream of the vehicle (electronic horizon), and can therefore help to choose which types of sensors are relevant.
. SafetyNex can estimate the maximum distance targetable by sensors (radar, camera, …) depending on the shape of the infrastructure (turn, climb, …)
. During a delegation of driving, the robot drives the vehicle and then SafetyNex V2.1 can estimate the road safety related to the automatic driving.
The road safety score can be used in several ways:
. Off-line: the engineers who design and develop driving delegation system uses the risk score of SafetyNex V2.1 as a feedback, and try to minimize it by successive tests.
. On-line: the risk score is used by the decision-making system to generate actions that lead to the lowest possible risk.
CONCLUSION
SafetyNex V2.1 is now available and NEXYAD is currently working on deployment opportunities worldwide at the beginning of 2016.
This module is unique and has a direct effect, if properly used, on road safety.
For more information: sales@nexyad.net
DEMO WITH SOUND IN URBAN TRAFFIC
Put the sound on for this demo with vocal explanations :
