ADAS & Connected Cars
The future on the road

NEXYAD Automotive & Transportation Newsletter #9, May the 9th, 2016



Headlines :

– Connected Car Insurance Europe Symposium in London

– Robustness of RoadNex v2.3

– Future Presence of Nexyad on Congresses & Exhibitions (ADAS, Connected Cars & Autonomous Vehicles)



Connected Car Insurance Europe Symposium in London

This year NEXYAD has participated to Connected Car Insurance Europe 2016 Congress at London the 12th and 13th april.
NEXYAD shared the booth 17 with the french company INTEMPORA creator of the famous Framework RT-MAPS to present SafetyNex. MOV’EO and cluster “Groupement ADAS” helped to sponsorize this venue.

HERE
HERE is a leader in mapping and location technology backed by a consortium of leading automotive brands. With highly precise, industrial grade maps and a robust and flexible platform of location services we help governments around the world and businesses across industries, from fleet management to retail, analyze and optimize their operations and better manage their assets with location intelligence. To learn more about our solutions for enterprise, visit here.com/enterprise

QUECLINK
Having shipped more than 1 million telematics units to leading service providers, Queclink is now one of the world’s largest suppliers of Fleet, UBI and M2M hardware. Established in 2009, we provide international design and manufacturing quality with the economics of Chinese high volume supply chains. Headquartered in Shanghai, our global management team with deep industry and technical skills can provide both standard and bespoke products for automotive, fleet, asset and personnel tracking as well as hardware designed specifically to meet the needs of the insurance market as it transitions to telematics based policies.
http://www.queclink.com/

SCOPE TELEMATICS
As a true global end-to-end telematics solution for insurance companies, car manufacturers and consumers, Scope Technology solutions includes hardware, an advanced actuarial platform, claims management support and actuarial support services. It is the only comprehensive insurance telematics solution available on the market with more than 35 usage-based insurance (UBI) projects spanning across Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas.
Our UBI products enable insurers to better manage client risk and encourage safer driving. Globally patented Advanced Pattern Recognition self-calibrates for highly accurate exception reporting related to driver abuse, and state-of-the-art Whiplash probability index.
Scope Technology, multi-awarded insurance telematics solutions are competitively priced, reliable, and designed for claims management support and fraud detection, Pay as you Drive plans, UBI and vehicle recovery, while meeting various industry requirement since 1999.
www.scopetechnology.com

Connected Car Insurance
Telematic met Insurance in London

WUNELLI
RELX Group is a world‐leading provider of information and analytics for professional and business customers across industries. The group serves customers in more than 180 countries and has offices in about 40 countries. It employs approximately 30,000 people of whom half are in North America. RELX PLC is a London listed holding company which owns 52.9% of RELX Group. RELX NV is an Amsterdam listed holding company which owns 47.1% of RELX Group. The shares are traded on the London, Amsterdam and New York Stock Exchanges using the following ticker symbols: London: REL; Amsterdam: REN; New York: RELX and RENX.
http://www.wunelli.com/default.aspx

HUBIO
Hubio provides integrated solutions to help organizations in the insurance and automotive sectors increase efficiency, reduce claims, build customer engagement and enable usage-based personalization.
Through the innovative use of telematics, UBI, mobile, gamification and enterprise technologies, Hubio is bringing new levels of data-driven insights to the insurance and automotive industries, while challenging and redefining established business models.
Hubio was formed to be a best-in-class solutions provider, bringing together several industry-leading technology and service businesses. As one organization, we are uniquely placed to deliver and support true end-to-end solutions.
For more information visit www.hubio.com

MSG Global Solutions
Working in balance with our customers and industry partners, msg global delivers solutions and services to help our customers achieve operational efficiency, meet regulatory standards and realize digital excellence. We bring expertise, a customer-centric philosophy, and a focus on innovation to everything we do.
We help insurers globally collect, manage and leverage data in the new IoT landscape. The Telematics Analyzer is the centerpiece of our IoT offering. We also offer a mobile application for usage-based insurance which is certified by a world-leading software provider.
http://www.msg-global.com/

INFOWARE
infoware is a specialist for map enabled technologies such as driver analysis, routing, geocoding and navigation. infoware’s APIs enable pay as you drive tariffs by analysing a driver’s driving style based on map and traffic data.
Infowares business is to deliver consultant services and contract services as well as products, based on platforms from IBM and Open Source. We are IBM premier Business Partners and have been working with IBM and Lotus technology since 1995. We address organizations with large production environments in need of services and products with high quality and security.
http://www.infoware.eu/

CalAmp
CalAmp (NASDAQ: CAMP) is a proven leader in providing wireless communications solutions to a broad array of vertical market applications and customers. CalAmp’s extensive portfolio of intelligent communications devices, robust and scalable cloud service platform, and targeted software applications streamline otherwise complex machine-to-machine (M2M) deployments. These solutions enable customers to optimize their operations by collecting, monitoring and efficiently reporting business critical data and desired intelligence from high-value remote assets.
http://www.calamp.com/

REDTAIL TELEMATICS
Redtail Telematics is a global leader in the design, manufacture and distribution of quality customised telematics products. Redtail’s systems have recorded over a billion miles worth of data and Redtail’s design and manufacturing teams have delivered over 5.5 million devices into the automotive aftermarket worldwide. Redtail is a full service TSP into the UBI and fleet markets, including devices, airtime, datawarehousing and analytics including crash notification and reconstruction and advanced scoring. Redtail notably supplies Ingenie and Admiral Group among others. Founded in 2010, Redtail is a sister company of Plextek, the award winning communications technology design house founded in 1989.
http://www.redtailtelematics.com/en-us/company/

Connected Car Insurance London 2016
Some booths : TrackM8, CalAmp, Vodafone Automtive and Nexyad

VODAFONE AUTOMOTIVE
Vodafone Automotive is a leading provider of automotive products and services – which include InCar Telematics, Stolen Vehicle Tracking and Usage Based Insurance solutions – for vehicle manufacturers, insurance companies and fleets.​
When it comes to the connected car, we offer the end to end solution by developing and fully managing:
• The onboard telematics unit
• The GDSP SIM connectivity over the Vodafone network
• The telematics infrastructure
• The network of National Service Providers (NSPs) and Secure Operating Centres (SOCs) across 49 countries globally.
Vodafone Automotive is part of Vodafone’s M2M business unit which connects devices such as cars to the internet.
http://www.cobra-group.com/

DANLAW
Danlaw is a recognized leader in automotive electronics and engineering solutions for OEM’s, Tier 1 suppliers, and automotive and fleet insurance companies worldwide since 1984. Danlaw’s specialty areas include embedded systems development and testing for Embedded Control Units (ECUs), vehicle network communications, infotainment testing, connected car solutions, and V2X certification services.
Danlaw is headquartered in Novi, MI, with offices in India and China. www.danlawinc.com

TRACKM8
Trakm8 is a UK-based big data company which uses innovative telematics as their primary enabler. The brand collect over two billion miles worth of data every year and create fine-tuned algorithms to track vehicles, score driver behaviour and provide FNOL in order for insurers to make informed decisions with regards to premium renewal and to assist in offering enhanced customer propositions.
The Group supplies telematics hardware, dash cams and other comprehensive fulfilment packages to a range of industries. Trakm8’s partners include well-known brands in the insurance sector such as Direct Line, Churchill and Young Marmalade.
http://www.trakm8.com/

SafetyNex Presentation
Gerard Yahiaoui present SafetyNex to the Congressmen


NEXYAD
Beside his products of Artificial Vision for ADAS and Autonomous Vehicle, Nexyad has been developing since 2001 Onboard Risk Assessment algorithms and propose a unique tool that really measures Risk of Accident : SafetyNex. SafetyNex was scientifically validated through french national research programs and by scientific papers from 11 european countries, it was proven by a campaign of 50 millions km by 500 cars running for 3 years; it is fast and easy to use because SafetyNex gives an immediate result of risk taken by user. The risk is directly computed by the microprocessor of smartphone. Risk assessment histogram and every usage data histograms are sent to the customer : it is not big data, it is “small data”. The benefit of this appoach compared to all the other competitors that compute scores in the cloud are :
– small data upload doesn’t consume too much of the driver’s phone bundle
– the definition of risk used in SafetyNex fits into actuaries expectations
– no need to wait for accident to know that driver is risky
– because it’s real time, SafetyNex allows prevention (alarm to the driver before risky situation); this alarm statisticaly reduces number of accident and speed during unavoidable accident (then reduces lost cost)

SafetyNex runs in smartphones, in devices on demand and there is a Studio version on RT-Maps for PCs.
https://nexyad.net/Automotive-Transportation/?page_id=441



Robustness of Road Detection by RoadNex v3.2

Nexyad compiled ten technology demos of our module software RoadNex v2.3

. 10 different roads : highway, desert track, country road, red road, et.
. 10 different conditions : fog, rain, front sunshine, overtaking, etc.
. 10 same excellent results : road on front of vehicle is detected

The 10 complete demos on “PRODUCTS” menu above



Future Presence of Nexyad on Congresses & Exhibitions (ADAS, Connected Cars & Autonomous Vehicles)

Nexyad at Active Safety Europe 2016 : ADAS to Autonomous

Actice Safety Europe 2016

Come to visit Nexyad the 17th & 18th may in Munich, Germany, for the Congress & Exhibition Active Safety Europe 2016 : ADAS to Autonomous.
Nexyad will be present with Intempora firm, provider of famous real time framework RT-Maps, Don’t miss the 18th : Software “Embeddibility”, Speaker Nicolas Dulac, CEO, Intempora.
Nexyad and Intempora are members of french cluster Groupement ADAS sponsored by MOVEO.


Nexyad at Autonomous Car Test & Development

Autonomous Car Test & Developement
Day 2 : June 1st 09:30 – Building a relevant validation database for camera-based ADAS
Gérard Yahiaoui, President and CEO, Nexyad, France
Validation of camera-based artificial vision systems applied on open world is a very complex issue. An HD colour camera may generate more than 65 000 power 2 000 000 different images (information theory), so it is not possible to test every possible message. We propose a deterministic approach for building a validation database using the AGENDA methodology that was developed and published in the 1990s for neural network database (learn and test) design.


Many Thanks to all Nexyad booth visitors at Connected Car Insurance

Connected Car Insurance
You have been numerous to visit Nexyad Booth at Connected Car Insurance, London last week.
Our disruptive product SafetyNex benefited a lot of interest !
SafetyNex measures Risk of Accident and decreases Loss Costs. This software is available as a smartphone App and as a device.
More information about the ultimate solution for insurance companies that need onboard risk assessment : SafetyNex Position Paper
Version française

Nexyad at Connected Car Insurance Europe 2016

Connected Car Insurance Floorplan

Come to visit us on booth 17 and don’t miss Nexyad SafetyNex Presentation :

Wes 13th – Track 3 : Technology & Innovation
3PM : Onboard road safety assessment for insurance companies (pay how you drive) and for car manufacturers (driverless car) SafetyNex
Insurance Companies :
Move from pricing group by group (segmentation) to pricing driver by driver Then statistics of accident cannot be relevant (accidents are rare and one cannot wait for accident to modify the pricing for a driver). One need to predict … to estimate if the driver takes risks or not. And it would be great to have it in real time because it may be used to warm the driver before he/she gets in a dangerous case.
Car Manufacturers :
Measure the risk taken by the driverless function. Needed to control the driverless function, needed to know when to give back control to the driver, needed in case of accident for responsability study.

Reminder : SafetyNex Presentation at Connected Car Insurance Europe

Connected Car Insurance

Connected Car Insurance Europe 2016
Tuesday 12th & Wesnesday 13th April – Hilton Tower Bridge London

Wes 13th – Track 3 : Technology & Innovation
3PM : Onboard road safety assessment for insurance companies (pay how you drive) and for car manufacturers (driverless car) SafetyNex
Insurance Companies :
Move from pricing group by group (segmentation) to pricing driver by driver Then statistics of accident cannot be relevant (accidents are rare and one cannot wait for accident to modify the pricing for a driver). One need to predict … to estimate if the driver takes risks or not. And it would be great to have it in real time because it may be used to warm the driver before he/she gets in a dangerous case.
Car Manufacturers :
Measure the risk taken by the driverless function. Needed to control the driverless function, needed to know when to give back control to the driver, needed in case of accident for responsability study.

High-Tech, ADAS, Autonomous Vehicle & Connected Car News

NEXYAD Automotive & Transportation Newsletter #8, March the 24th, 2016



Headlines :

– Nexyad has just been rated by Early Metrics : We got Three Stars

– The Ultimate Solution for Insurance Companies that need Onboard Risk Assessment : SafetyNex

– Obstacle Detection using ObstaNex BiCam v1.0 : Rear Vision Demo

– Road Detection using RoadNex on Smartphone Camera (IOS,Android, Windows Phone)

– Future Presence of Nexyad on Congresses & Exhibitions (ADAS, Autonomous Cars & Insurance)

– Nexyad in Media

– Meeting with French Senator Claude NOUGEIN



Nexyad has just been rated by Early Metrics :
We got Three Stars

Early Metrics, first rating agency for startups gave three stars to NEXYAD.
The audit of NEXYAD has been ordered by a major industrial company of Automotive. The founders, the project, the market and the financial statement of NEXYAD were rated 75/100.
NEXYAD is then in the 20% highest rates ever given by Early Metrics.

Early Metrics
More informations : Early Metrics



The Ultimate Solution for Insurance Companies that need Onboard Risk Assessment : SafetyNex

. WHY TESTED SOLUTIONS ALL FAILED (ACTUARIES SAY) ?
. WHY SOLUTIONS BASED ON “SEVERE BRAKING”, “VELOCITY IN CURVE”, “ACCELERATIONS” … HAVE STRICTLY NO CHANCE TO WORK ?
. WHAT TO DO TO GET A RISK ASSESSMENT MODULE THAT WORKS? (Presentation of a disruptive solution)

Read the paper here.
Version française

Launch of SafetyNex Campaign :
Commercial SafetyNex



Obstacle Detection using ObstaNex BiCam v1.0 :
Rear Vision Demo

Nexyad runs two monovision-based obstacle detection modules (ObstaNex V2.1), and developed a data fusion algorithm that reshapes stereo.
This solution still can work in monovision when one camera is off.
In this example, we installed cameras in the place of rearview Mirror on a van.


Detection of pedestrian near the vehicle



Road Detection using RoadNex on Smartphone & RT-Maps

Road Detection using Smartphone Camera (IOS, Android, Windows Phone) : Nexyad Team validated that RoadNex works in real time on smartphone !
Otherwise, a new release of Nexyad Road Detection and software module is available on RT-Maps (by Intempora). RoadNex v2.3 (32 & 64 bits).

RoadNex Smartphone
Soon available on IOS, Android and Windows Phone.



Future Presence of Nexyad on Congresses & Exhibitions (ADAS, Autonomous Cars & Insurance)

Connected Car Insurance Europe 2016
Day 2 : April 13th1st 15:00 – Exclusive Nexyad Presentation by CEO Gérard Yahiaoui
The Ultimate Solution for Insurance Companies that need Onboard Risk Assessment : SafetyNex

Why tested solutions all failed (actuaries say) ?
Why solutions based on severe braking, velocity in curve, accelerations… have strictly no chances to work ?
What to do to get a risk assessment module that works ? (presentation of a disruptive solution)


Autonomous Car Test & Developement
Day 2 : June 1st 09:30 – Building a relevant validation database for camera-based ADAS
Gérard Yahiaoui, President and CEO, Nexyad, France
Validation of camera-based artificial vision systems applied on open world is a very complex issue. An HD colour camera may generate more than 65 000 power 2 000 000 different images (information theory), so it is not possible to test every possible message. We propose a deterministic approach for building a validation database using the AGENDA methodology that was developed and published in the 1990s for neural network database (learn and test) design.


Active Safety Munich
Nexyad will be present on a booth with Groupement ADAS.
Groupement ADAS is a Team of innovative companies with over 20 years experience in the field of technologies used in driver assistance systems and autonomous vehicles (design, implementation and integration of ADAS in vehicles for safety features, driver assistance, partial delegation to the autonomous vehicle). Members of the groupements propose complementary expertise, tools and test equipment (including test tracks) to take-up your challenging projects covering vehicle electronics, vehicle dynamics, command/control, HMI, perception, computer vision, data-fusion, communication, eco-driving… Groupement ADAS members are: CAR&D , FH Electronics, GlobalSensing Technologies, Intempora, Nexyad, Nomadic Solutions, Sherpa Engineering and Transpolis. It is coordinated by the French MOV’EO cluster.




Nexyad in Media

“En route pour la voiture autonome” – On the Way to Autonomous Car

LePoint

The french weekly “Le Point” on February 11th released a special section on the city of Saint Germain en Laye near Paris. The journalist Valerie Peiffer has devoted a page to Nexyad.

To Read More.



Meeting with French Senator Claude NOUGEIN

18 Feb 2016 :
NEXYAD president CEO Gerard YAHIAOUI, and a panel of SMEs founders were invited by Isabelle STHEMER of DojoGroup, in Paris, and could exchange points of views about economics and small business development with French Senator Claude NOUGEIN.

Gérard Yahiaoui and Senator Claude Nougein
The main purpose was to share ideas that may enhance SMEs performance and French competitivity.


Gérard Yahiaoui, Nexyad CEO
Gérard Yahiaoui in a very casual discussion.


Senator Claude Nougein
The Senator Claude NOUGEIN (here) that dares to talk to the base for a better understanding of the micro economy in the country. Quite unusual in France and very important !
Thank you Monsieur le Senateur !

Nexyad Intelligence :
Experts say driverless cars will require artificial intelligence

Automakers intending to bring driverless cars to market need to work as much on software design as mechanical engineering, the researcher leading Nissan Motor Co.’s automated-vehicle program said.

Making cars that are “deliberative” in assessing road conditions, rather than just reactive, requires artificial intelligence, Maarten Sierhuis, director of Nissan’s Silicon Valley research center in Sunnyvale, California, said in an interview. The carmaker, which aims to sell vehicles that can drive themselves by 2020 or sooner, is developing software to read and filter sensor data much as a human brain does, he said.

To read more : http://www.newsday.com/classifieds/cars/experts-say-driverless-cars-will-require-artificial-intelligence-1.8817975


NEXYAD has been working on such an Artificial Intelligence through their risk of accident computing module SafetyNex.

SafetyNex is a knowledge-based system that computes a huge data fusion : information about the navigation map, speed of the car, accelerations, visibility, grip(adherence), time to collision, interdistance, … This data fusion aims to compute a risk of accident : low score means the driver (human driver … or Artificial Intelligence, robot) drives in a safe way. This SafetyNex is an artificial intelligence that should work embeded with the driving robot.

The first market of SafetyNex is Insurance companies that need to score the behaviour of drivers (pay how you drive …), it doesn’t need to be as precised and reliable than it should be for a driverless car, but NEXYAD started to deploy and then will be the most experienced ADAS/AI company on this subject in 2020 when autonomous cars will invade the streets.

Nexyad made experimentation in the same path with four different driving behaviour, each second we recorded points that represent a score of safety and of Eco driving. The more high on the graphic is the points the more safe is the driving, the more right the more Eco :

Good & Bad drivers


Sportive & Quiet Drivers

Some insurance companies gave up measuring driver behaviour :
Nexyad explains why their settings are ineffective

According to the newspaper ‘Les Echos”, AG Insurance gave up linking driving behavior to accident. For eight months, the insurer has equipped the car of staff members with “smartbox”. Verdict? Nah, nothing interesting linkable to driving style !
In 2014, the bank insurer KBC had reached the same conclusion after a test conducted with 150 employees, whose car was equipped with a device provided by TomTom. ”
AG Insurance

Read more : http://www.lecho.be/entreprises/services_financiers_assurances/AG_Insurance_renonce_a_lier_la_prime_auto_au_comportement.9729053-3028.art?ckc=1&ts=1455208594

For Nexyad, there is no mystery. Until now the applications or cases expected to provide data on the behavior of drivers all operate on the same principles :
– severe acceleration and braking
– Vehicle geolocation
– Cornering speed / curves
– Usage (mileage, road types, driving schedules, for example)

This information does not measure the “good behavior” that may inform actuaries of insurance on real risks taken by their clients.
Indeed, the correlation between the brutal acceleration (or severe braking) and road safety is a mistaken belief. The assumption that severe braking would report to a lack of anticipation of the driver, and instead a slight braking would be a sign of good anticipation is definitely wrong. This has been formally shown and demonstrated by experts in road safety. Besides, these same experts believe that an Eco driving is necessarily dangerous: Eco driving mainly keeping as most as possible the vehicle’s inertia, and thus slowing down as little as possible, which would push the Eco drivers to delay their decision of braking including when they approach a vulnerable road user (pedestrians, bicycles, scooters, etc.).
Nexyad worked since 2001 on these issues through four national collaborative research programs and now has a totally disruptive application that measures the Eco driving, but also road safety and those two measurements has no correlation).

This work consisted, for 15 years, in building the causal rules that lead to accidents. This is entirely different of statistical approaches. An insurance actuary may find that the majority of drivers under 25 years old with a red car have more accidents than others, and then this actuary could modulate its pricing on this criterion. This is reasoning on correlations and not cause and effect. Nexyad is the first and only company that can bring cause and effect considerations into accident risk assesment for insurance companies.

Nexyad developed the module SafetyNex which decodes the difficulties of the road infrastructure (dangerous curves, intersections, pedestrian crossings, school zone, etc.) relates those difficulties to the behavior of the vehicle through a grid of cause and effect. The construction of this grid of cause and effect required 15 years of knowledge extraction among a panel of road safety experts (their job is to explain accidents, and find ways to reshape roads and infrastructures in order to reduce statistics of accidents – national and European).

SafetyNex has been validated by INRETS (now became IFFSTAR) that deployed 500 vehiclesand compared risk estimation by SafetyNex with the accidents database “MAIS” of the National French Gendarmerie. We could demonstrate that SafetyNex estimates risk of traffic accident, as an immediately usable score for actuaries of insurance (for example).

NB: Accidents are rare events (one every 70 000km on average). This is why teams of road safety improvement at the national level have set up « observatories of cars trajectories ». They allowed to count the “near misses”. A near miss is accident that were prevented at the very last second (because one of the drivers had the proper reflex, …). When observing a repeat of near misses, then you end up getting an accident (near misses are at least a hundred times more numerous than accidents).
Nexyad is the only team of telematics solutions that brings this knowledge of these near misses and that is able to share it with the risk estimation experts at insurance companies.

How it works ?
Every second, a risk score and an Eco score are computed by SafetyNex, depending on the vehicle speed relative to the difficulty of the road infrastructure. Drivers can be warned in advance, 4 seconds before arriving on the dangerous area. Then SafetyNex may also decrease the number of accident (or the severity of accidents when they can’t be avoided).
SafetyNex establishes daily or weekly reports on the risk and eco and shows what could have been better (advices on driving efficiency improvement).
Insurers may get reports too : the real risk indicators. This is what Nexyad called SafetyNex signature driving behavior (duration at every level of risk, for instance).

View demos 4 films on the same route (1mn30):

Example of a good driver : both safe and Eco.

Example of a bad driver : both waste and risky

Example of a sporting driver : waste but safe most of the time

Example of a quit driver : eco, but very dangerous. Note : because this driver shows no severe braking, no over speed, then telematics solutions (except SafetyNex) will classify this driver as a GOOD DRIVER : this is a proof that severe brakin and over speed DO NOT give ANY information about road safety.

Des assureurs renoncent à mesurer le comportement des conducteurs !
Nexyad explique pourquoi leurs paramètres sont inopérants.

Selon les Echos “AG Insurance renonce à lier la prime auto au comportement. Pendant huit mois, l’assureur a équipé la voiture de collaborateurs d’une “smartbox”. Verdict? Bof, pas de quoi lier la prime au style de conduite.

En 2014, le bancassureur KBC avait tiré les mêmes conclusions d’un test mené auprès de 150 collaborateurs, dont la voiture avait été équipée d’un dispositif fourni par TomTom.”

Lire la suite : http://www.lecho.be/entreprises/services_financiers_assurances/AG_Insurance_renonce_a_lier_la_prime_auto_au_comportement.9729053-3028.art?ckc=1&ts=1455208594


Pour Nexyad, il n’y a pas de mystère. Jusqu’à aujourd’hui les applications ou boîtiers censés fournir des données sur le comportement des conducteurs fonctionnent sur de mêmes principes falsifiables :

– remontée des données d’accélération et de freinage
– géolocalisation du véhicule
– vitesse dans les virages/courbes
– usage du conducteur (kilométrage, types de route, horaires de conduite par exemple)

Ces informations ne permettent pas de mesurer la “bonne conduite” et de renseigner les actuaires des assurances sur les risques réels pris par leurs clients.
En effet, la corrélation entre la brutalité des accélérations d’une part, la sévérité des freinages d’autre part et la sécurité routière est une croyance erronée. L’hypothèse selon laquelle un freinage sévère relèverait d’un manque d’anticipation du conducteur, et au contraire qu’un freinage léger serait le signe d’une bonne anticipation est fausse. Cela a été démontré formellement par les experts de la sécurité routière. D’ailleurs ces mêmes experts sont persuadés qu’une conduite Eco est nécessairement dangereuse : conduire Eco c’est garder l’inertie du véhicule, et donc freiner le moins possible, ce qui pousserait les conducteurs Eco à retarder leur décision de freinage y compris devant un vulnérable (piétons, vélos, scooters, etc.).

Nexyad a travaillé depuis 2001 sur ces questions au travers de 4 programmes de recherches nationaux collaboratifs et dispose aujourd’hui d’une application totalement disruptive qui mesure l’Eco conduite, mais aussi la sécurité routière.
Ce travail a consisté durant 15 ans à construire les règles de causalité des accidents. Cela est entièrement différent des approches statistiques. Un actuaire d’assurance qui constaterait que la majorité des conducteurs de moins de 25 ans possédant une voiture rouge ont plus d’accidents que les autres pourrait moduler sa tarification sur ce critère. Ceci est un raisonnement sur des corrélations et non pas sur des relations de cause à effet.
Nexyad a développé le module SafetyNex qui est à ce jour le seul au monde à décoder les difficultés de l’infrastructure routière (courbes dangereuses, intersections, passages piéton, zone écoles, etc.) rapportées au comportement du véhicule selon une grille de relations de cause à effet. La construction de cette grille a nécessité 15 ans de recueil d’expertises auprès des experts chargés de réaménager les routes afin de réduire les statistiques nationales et européennes d’accidentologie.

SafetyNex a été validé par les roulages de 500 véhicules de l’Institut de recherche INRETS devenu IFSTTAR, puis par des comparaisons d’estimation du risque avec la carte des accidents de la route du fichier “MAIS” de la gendarmerie nationale. Nous avons démontré que SafetyNex mesure un risque d’accident de la route, variable immédiatement utilisable pour les actuaires des assurances (par exemple).
NB : Les accidents sont rares (un tous les 70 000km en moyenne). C’est pourquoi les équipes chargées de la sécurité routière au niveau national ont constitué des observatoires de trajectoires qui permettent de compter les “quasi-accidents”. Un quasi-accident est un accident évité de justesse. Lorsqu’on observe une répétition de la fréquence de quasi-accidents, on finit par obtenir un accident (les quasi-accidents sont au minimum cent fois plus nombreux que les accidents).
Nexyad est la seule équipe proposant des solutions télématiques qui a connaissance de ces quasi-accidents, qui intègre les règles de causalité de l’accidentologie à son module SafetyNex et qui peut les partager avec les experts d’estimation de risque et des bases de sinistralité des assurances.

Comment ça marche ?
Chaque seconde une note de risque et une note Eco sont mesurées par SafetyNex en fonction de la vitesse du véhicule rapportée à la difficulté de l’infrastructure routière. Le conducteur peut être prévenu en avance (4 secondes) si le risque mesuré le met en danger lui et les autres usagers. SafetyNex établit des rapports journaliers ou hebdomadaires (par exemple) sur la conduite de l’utilisateur et les points qu’il devrait améliorer.
Les assureurs peuvent éventuellement disposer des rapports de conduite de leurs assurés et récompenser ceux dont la conduite est sûre par rapport aux vrais indicateurs de risque. C’est ce que Nexyad appelle la signature SafetyNex de comportement en conduite.

Voir 4 films démos sur un même parcours (1mn30) :

Exemple d’un bon conducteur à la fois sûr et Eco.

Exemple d’un mauvais conducteur qui ne s’adapte pas à l’infrastructure et consomme trop de carburant.

Exemple d’un conducteur sportif, il accélère fort et freine sévèrement, il n’est pas Eco mais il est plutôt sûr.

Exemple d’un conducteur calme, il est Eco mais ne freine ni ne décélère là où il devrait (intersections, passages piétons), il est très dangereux.

In-Car Sensors Put Insurers In The Driver’s Seat

By Teresa Meek

Jeff Branson, the police chief of Mattoon, Ill., has been tracking a lead-footed driver for nearly two years.

A couple of times, he’s caught the guy doing 70 in a 55. He’s confiscated the vehicle twice but never issued a ticket.

The speed demon just happens to be his 18-year-old son Chase. Branson monitors his son’s driving habits with a device provided by auto insurance provider State Farm that plugs into the car’s data port and collects information on mileage, braking, turns, acceleration, and what time of day Chase is driving. The device uploads the data to the company, which uses it to rate drivers and offer them a possible discount under the company’s “Drive Safe & Save” program. Information about Chase’s specific location and speed is sent to Branson through an optional monitoring program associated with the device but is not sent to the insurance company.

In-car sensors, or telematics, have become business as usual for major auto insurance carriers like State Farm, Progressive PGR +0.00% and Allstate ALL +0.00%, which say customers appreciate the opportunity to review their performance online and receive discounts on their insurance. The palm-sized devices plug into a car’s data port, the same spot mechanics use for vehicle diagnostics. (All cars made since 1996 have the ports.) The devices record information about mileage and speed, which is then used to calculate data about acceleration and braking trends. Some systems also have GPS capability that is relayed to insurance companies for research purposes — or to owners like Branson who opt for driver monitoring.

to read more : http://www.nexyad-adas.com/archives/2016/01/13/33197670.html

Mesure du comportement de conduite des conducteurs : SafetyNex

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).

SafetyNex

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)

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

SafetyNex & EcoGyzer : the Sportive-Safe Driver

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

USING NEXYAD ADAS MODULES
FOR AUTONOMOUS VEHICLE AND SAFETY/RISK ESTIMATION



USING NEXYAD ADAS MODULES FOR AUTONOMOUS VEHICLE AND SAFETY/RISK ESTIMATION

by NEXYAD


INTRODUCTION

The company NEXYAD developped software modules for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems :
. RoadNex (Road detection) : lane detection, detection of the borderlines of drivable area in the lane, detection of the surface of drivable area in the lane.
Sensor : camera (color)

. ObstaNex (Obstacles detection) : obstacles detection (if they have a vertical dimension or – inclusive – if they have their own movement)
Sensor : camera (N&B or color), accel, gyro

. VisiNex onboard (weather visibility measurement) : visibility measurement (quality and distance)
Sensor : camera

. SafetyNex : onboard road safety / risk estimation
Sensor : navigation map, gps, accel or car speed

Those modules were made to develop very efficient ADAS.
There are many ways of comining those modules, depending on the function that should be developped.

LANE KEEPING AND AUTOMATIC BRAKING : FOR CAR MANUFACTURERS AND TIER ONE COMPANIES

For this function, modules may be integrated in a rather complex way :
Nexyad Suite 1
Such an application needs to know where it works and where it doesn’t work (reliability). For that, VisiNex helps because it measures weather visibility and the nit is possible to know in which context artificial vision algorithms are efficient or not. It is also possible to switch setting parameters of artificial vision based algorithms using visibility characteristics, in order to expand the range of good performance of the global system (this is robustness).

NEXYAD applies a validation methodology called AGENDA (see papers in CESA Automotive 2014 in Paris and in SATETYWEEK 2015 in Aschaffenburg). This methodology is the onlt approach that allows to know what the system is supposed to do in a functional point of view, with measurable characterisctics of road scenes.
NEXYAD of course uses the NEXYAD ADAS validation data base : a part of this validation data base for artificial vision-based ADAS will be soon online for free (usable by every researcher or engineer in the world).

Note : the AGENDA methodology also provides a method to measure the similarity of a road scene in the validation data base anda current road scene : this is applied to estimate a confidence score.

SAFETY / RISK ESTIMATION FOR INSURANCE COMPANIES

SafetyNex measures the adequation of driving to road infrastructure characteristics.
It generates then a risk if the driver goes too fast when approaching a crossing road or a dangerous curve.
Of course, a poor visibility should lead the driver to drive slower.
In addition, there could be auxiliary inputs that would tell SafetyNex if there are obstacles on the pathway :
Nexyad Suite 2
This scheme is the same than the previous one but the outputs of RoadNex and ObstaNex are used INSIDE the scheme (they don’t provide an output of the global scheme).

DEMOS OF NEXYAD MODULES



REFERENCES

Validation of Advanced Driving Assistance Systems by Gérard Yahiaoui & Nicolas Du Lac
CESA Paper by Gérard Yahiaoui & Pierre Da Silva Dias
Road detection for ADAS and autonomous vehicle
Using the NEXYAD road detection (RoadNex) to make obstacles detection more robust
Real Time Onboard Risk Estimation Correlated with Road Accident
Visibility Measurement for ADAS and Autonomous Vehicle