SafetyNex Episode 5 : Your Eyes & Your ADAS Sensors are not Enough
Watch this 2 minutes video showing 5 concrete examples of driving situations where the eyes of the driver and the ADAS sensors of the vehicle are not sufficient to prevent accident.
– SafetyNex episode 4 : Driving Risk Assessment for Automotive (Driving Assistant, ADAS, Autonomous Driving)
– CNEJITA Seminar on Artificial Intelligence: who will be responsible ?
– SafetyNex : driving robot maybe will mitigate human errors, but first they have to imitate good drivers
– « Theory of Water Flush » and Impact on the Prevention of Accidents for Autonomous Vehicles
– 4 disruptive AI algorithms for automotive mobility
Headlines :
– SafetyNex episode 4 : Driving Risk Assessment for Automotive (Driving Assistant, ADAS, Autonomous Driving)
– CNEJITA Seminar on Artificial Intelligence: who will be responsible ?
– « Theory of Water Flush » and Impact on the Prevention of Accidents for Autonomous Vehicles
– 4 disruptive AI algorithms for automotive mobility
AI: concepts, technological breakthroughs and new risks
– Understanding the Concepts and Landscape of AI – Jean-Claude HEUDIN (Artificial-Creature.com – Teacher Researcher in AI)
– IA: state of play and perspectives – Jean-Philippe DESBIOLLES (IBM head of France IA WATSON)
Roundtable – Which Expertise fo AI ? was animated by Serge MIGAYRON (Honorary President of CNEJITA)
– The acceptability and limits of IA – JA CAUSSE (CNEJITA Expert)
– The Autonomous Vehicle and Traceability of IA – Jean-Louis LEQUEUX (Former President of VeDeCoM Tech)
– Auditability and risk control in the design of an IA – Gérard YAHIAOUI (NEXYAD)
– Evolution of the world of insurance, towards an objective responsibility – Nicolas HELENON (Co-manager Firm NEO TECH Assurances)
Roundtable – The Legal Challenges of AI. Animation – A MEILLASSOUX (ATM Lawyers – President of AFDIT)
– Introduction to Classical and New AI Concepts by Law: Applicable Regime and Evidence – L SZUSKIN (BAKER McKENZIE Lawyer)
– Tort liability in the face of AI: adaptation of traditional categories or creation of a responsibility specific to AI? – P GLASER (Lawyer TAYLOR WESSING)
– Contractual liability in the face of the IA: risk management during the contractualization of an IA system – FP LANI (DERRIENNIC Associate Lawyer)
– Synthesis on the current legal landscape – G de MONTEYNARD (Attorney General at the Court of Cassation)
Gérard YAHIAOUI, CEO of NEXYAD
by NEXYAD
INTRODUCTION
Let’s suppose that the flush does not exist in our toilets, and then let’s suppose that engineers able to create complex systems or even « systems of systems » are consulted to invent it, and that they apply exactly the same method than they do in the field of ADAS and Autonomous Vehicles.
METHOD OF SCENARIOS
We propose to apply the method of scenarios, which consists in crossing all the factors that can modify the situation, then in each case of the complete combination, propose a solution. For this, it is necessary to note the number of possible shapes for the tank, the possible volumes, all the possible locations for the water supply entry, the possible diameters of the inlet pipe, the flow rates and possible pressures of water, the possible residual water levels before filling. We can generate the combinatorial of these factors, which allows us to generate all the possible scenarios of the « flush » problem. In each case, it is possible to give a solution, namely, the duration of filling of the tank (opening and closing of the water tap).
This approach is fully compatible with deep learning, which will also interpolate between two reference cases (quality of interpolation/generalization to be controlled, of course) if characteristics had to drift over time. Of course, the tank must integrate a system of sensors to evaluate the configuration (diameter of pipe, pressure of water, position pipe, capacity of the tank, etc …). We can use a camera, lasers, ultrasounds, etc. So that this recognition of situation is as accurate as possible. For such an approach, automation/control engineers talk about open-loop (feed forward) control because the data flow is as follows:
COST AND ROBUSTNESS OF THE SCENARIOS METHOD
It is easy to understand that the flush thus designed will be perfectly functional (there is no reason for it does not work), but for a high cost due to the sensors to integrate. Similarly, the robustness of the system to a measurement error or to a bad situation recognition is not guaranteed : we can very good to fill too much or not enough. The accuracy of the configuration case recognition is very important.
SOLUTION OF WATER FLUSH IN THE REAL WORLD
If you have the curiosity to disassemble your flush, you will notice that it is much simpler than the system described above: A float indicates when the water supply valve should be closed. The figure is as follows:
Automation engineers call this a closed loop control (servo control). The feed forward « open » control is reduced to « open the tap thoroughly without worrying about the flow of water, the volume of the tank, and turn off the tap as soon as the float asks for it « . Note that this method works regardless of the configuration of the flush : we do not even need to know the volume of the tank that can be modified (for example: by filling half of the tank with glass beads) without affecting the operation of the flush. It is a robust and cheap system.
TRANSCRIPT OF THESE REMARKS IN THE FIELD OF ADAS AND AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES:
SERVO CONTROL IN DECISION
The information processing chain of the autonomous vehicle follows the general feed forward form :
NEXYAD has developed the SafetyNex system which dynamically estimates in real time the risk that the driver (human or artificial) takes. However, the autonomous vehicle may be functionally specified as follows:
« transport someone from point A to point B as quickly as possible, and safely. »
The « quickly » aspect is the historical business of the automobile. The « safely » notion integrates intrinsic safety of the system (its dependability: it should not explode, sensors or power supply may not be disabled, etc.), and since it is a vehicle, its ability to move with a good road safety, that is to say by « not taking too much risk in driving ». Since SafetyNex estimates this driving risk dynamically and in real time, it can be said that SafetyNex is a dynamic indicator of « SOTIF » (Safety Of The Intended Function). SafetyNex acts as a « driving risk float » : when the risk arrives at the maximum accepted level (like the float of the flush) we stop the action that raised the risk (example: we stop accelerating or we slow down). Thus, the response of an autonomous driving system is made adaptive (at the decision level) : even if the feed forward open loop is not perfect, it can correct itself to take into account, among other things, the instruction and the measure of driving risk. This system is completely independent of the automatic driving system in terms of information processing, so it represents redundancy of processing.
SafetyNex uses to estimate risk :
. risk due to inadequacy of driving behaviour to the difficulties of the infrastructure : navigation map, GPS, accelerometers
. risk due to inadequacy of driving behaviour to the presence of other road users (cars, pedestrians, …) : data extracted from the sensors (camera, lidar, radar, etc) such as « time to collision », « inter distance (in seconds) », number of vulnerables around, etc.
. risk due to inadequacy of driving behaviour to weather conditions: in particular to atmospheric visibility (fog, rain, snow, sand, penumbra). Knowing that when visibility is low, vehicle must pay more attention (and slow down) even if this autonomous vehicle is not impacted by the decrease in visibility (if it only uses a lidar for example) because the avoidance of an accident is done at the same time by the two protagonists : if one of them (pedestrian, human driver), does not see the autonomous vehicle, then it finds itself only to be able to avoid the accident, which doubles the probabilities of a potential accident.
. other
The use of SafetyNex allows to make adaptive an artificial intelligence of autonomous driving, on the following diagram :
If you have a lean computer, then you only apply one loop between t and (t+1) as it is shown on the figure. If you have a powerful computer, you can then even simulate a big number of decisions and take the less risky one (like automaticians do with predictive control systems). Of course, SafetyNex is only ONE way to close the loop (on a crucial notion : driving risk). This figure may be extanded to other variables of contol that make sense for an autonomous vehicle. More complex adaptation rules may switch from a decision to another if risk simulation shows that finally it is less risky (ex : slow down or turn wheel ?).
CONCLUSION
SafetyNex uses the map in addition to sensors (same sensors as the driving system or parallel tracks) and does not need to accurately identify the situation but instead to estimate a risk (this is a different task). SafetyNex is a knowledge-based AI system (knowledge extracted from human experts in road safety, from 19 countries – Europe Japan USA – who validated the system over 50 million km. Total research program duration : 15 years). This technology is still being improved, of course, but it can already be integrated into autonomous vehicles and avoid a large number of accidents by its ability to make the system adaptive to unknown situations. In particular, in the case of autonomous urban vehicles (autonomous shuttles, robot taxis), the adaptation of driving behaviour to complexity of infrastructure is made possible by SafetyNex, which decodes this complexity by reading the navigation map in front of the vehicle. SafetyNex makes the autonomous vehicle anticipate more by following « rules of safety » : with SafetyNex emergency situations (that still will need emergency braking and other emergency actions) become much more rare. Autonomous vehicle acts like an experienced cautious driver. Note : if you modulate Maximum Accepted Risk, then you modulate aggressiveness of the autonomous vehicle. This might make sense not to let the autonomous vehicle trapped in complex human driving situations (where the autonomous vehicle would stopped indefinitly).
. ObstaNex detects obstacles with a simple cam (a la Mobileye).
What is disruptive ?
ObstaNex runs in real time on a regular smartphone… it means it doesn’t need a big computing power to run. It can be trained/re trained on a « small database » using the methodology A.G.E.N.D.A. (Approche Générale des Etudes Neuronales pour le Développement d’Applications or General Approach of Neuronal Studies for Application Development) – important is you improve your cam !
. RoadNex detects drivable part of the lane borders and free space.
What is disruptive ?
RoadNex works even in the Streets of old cities as Paris, London or Roma, and it runs in real time on a regular smartphone. it means it doesn’t need a big computing power to run.
. VisiNex detects lacks of visibility (fog, heavy rain, snow, sand storm …).
What is disruptive ?
VisiNex is an artificial vision tool which is correlated with human perception. If there is something to see, VisiNex is able to give a score of visibility. Except Daimler, we haven’t seen such a military background-based detection elsewhere.
. SafetyNex is the only fusion Artificial Intelligence algorithm (sensor + map fusion) that estimates driving risk dynamically and in real time.
What is disruptive?
SafetyNex allows to have an explicit value of driving risk. It is a total revolution for car insurers, fleet managers, and autonomous driving engineers. These algorithms are already under integration into products for telematics /connected car, ADAS, Autonomous Vehicle.
Headlines :
– Nexyad and Groupement ADAS at Automotive Symposium
– New Papers of Nexyad on advantages of SafetyNex
– Challenge Open Innovation Renault
– Nexyad at Imagine Mobility Forum 2017
– Nexyad presenting the driving risk solution SafetyNex to Eurapco
– Conference at “Cercle LAB” Paris
– HERE invited NEXYAD to Le Mans
– Meeting HappYnnov at Chamber of Commerce Versailles-Yvelines
– Nexyad booth to la fête du THD at Acome in Mortain (Normandy)
– NEXYAD in Media
Headlines :
– Nexyad and Groupement ADAS at Automotive Symposium
– New Papers of Nexyad on advantages of SafetyNex
– Challenge Open Innovation Renault
– Nexyad at Imagine Mobility Forum 2017
– Nexyad presenting the driving risk solution SafetyNex to Eurapco
– Conference at « Cercle LAB » Paris
– HERE invited NEXYAD to Le Mans
– Meeting HappYnnov at Chamber of Commerce Versailles-Yvelines
– Nexyad booth to la fête du THD at Acome in Mortain (Normandy)
June 20, 21 and 22th 2017 saw the big Automotive Symposium in Stuttgart, land of Daimler, Porsche, Robert Bosch GmbH.
We present our modules based on Artifical Vision and A.I. for ADAS, Connected Cars and Driverless.
This year Groupement ADAS is represented by Intempora, New Imaging Technologies, Sherpa Engineering and Nexyad.
Nexyad booth at Hall 2C
This year, we made a focus on three big engineering companies in Europe. No surprise two are germans and one is Austrian. Those companies are worldwide with offices and plants in other continents. They work for car manufacturers and suppliers.
FEV is an internationally recognised development service provider for drive and vehicle technologies, and an innovative supplier of cutting-edge software and testing solutions. Thanks to the synergy of these complementary activities, FEV is the perfect partner for providing test fields, measuring equipment and software solutions that fit with the needs of the automobile market. As a powertrain development specialist, it helps to make the development process more efficient and to transfer significant process steps from the road to the test rig and to the desktop, thanks to its leading-edge methodologies and tools. FEV’s competencies also include powertrain electronic control systems and hydro-electric engine concepts that address future emission and fuel economy standards.
Employing over 6500 members of staff, IAV is one of the world’s leading providers of engineering services to the automotive industry. The company has been developing innovative concepts and technologies for future vehicles for more than 30 years. Core competencies include production-ready solutions in all fields of electronics, powertrain and vehicle development. Clients include all of the world’s premier automobile manufacturers and suppliers. In addition to development centres in Berlin, Gifhorn and Chemnitz/Stollberg, IAV operates from other locations in Germany, Europe and Asia, as well as in North and South America.
AVL is the world’s largest independent company developing IC engine powertrains along with the associated instrumentation and test systems. It develops and improves all kinds of powertrain systems, including alternative and hybrid systems, and is an effective partner to the engine and automotive industry. In addition, AVL develops and markets all simulation methods and easy-to-use software tools necessary for development work. The company’s unique power derives from the systematic netting of single simulation results to integrated, multidimensional simulation platforms on the basis of its deep engineering expertise. Its Engine Instrumentation and Tests Systems business area produces all instruments and systems required for engine and vehicle testing.
I – INTRODUCTION
NEXYAD has been developing the smartphonte application SafetyNex which estimates the risk of driving in real time [1]. SafetyNex is both a driver assistance system (ADAS), which alerts the driver (vocal alert) before danger (When the risk increases too much), and a telematics system that records risk profiles and usage profiles.
Warning before the danger gives the driver time to slow down and avoid the accident. Road Safety studies show that SafetyNex can reduce the number of accidents by 20% [2]. This simple functionality is of interest of car insurers, fleet managers, and to car manufacturers.
SafetyNex also rewards the driver with cups (gold, silver, bronze) that can be transformed into money incentive (vouchers, etc.) so that the safe drivers stil have a daily interest to go on using SafetyNex. Indeed, tools that are not used over a period of time rarely have a real effect on the accidentology. SafetyNex is therefore distinguished from other products, on the one hand by its real time and driving assistance, but also for its « reward » side. SafetyNex informs the driver In real time when the risk exceeds a threshold of danger, than one can say that SafetyNex gives the risk in the hands of the driver first. The driver is in control of his/her risk.
Then SafetyNex distinguishes from all telematics products that ultimately provide information to the insurer or fleet manager, but not to the driver who feels rightly spied on.
Risk and usage profiles [3] are forwarded to managers who have an interest in minimizing risk and the number of accidents. This paper presents a simple way to interpret the risk profiles constructed by SafetyNex.
Depuis 1996, les assureurs français se sont engagés auprès de l’Etat à mener des actions de prévention routière. Ils doivent consacrer ainsi chaque année à ce type d’action de prévention 0,5% du montant des cotisations de responsabilité civile automobile perçues.
Traditionnellement, les actions menées sont des opérations de sensibilisation dans les écoles, conseils pratiques en vidéo, pistes de conduite avec moniteur, simulateurs de conduite, voiture tonneau, etc… Ces actions doivent avoir un effet à long terme sur la réduction du nombre d’accidents de la route. Récemment, les applications smartphone sont aussi utilisées, toujours en opération de sensibilisation.
C’est dans le cadre de cette entrée du numérique, dans l’action obligatoire de prévention, que SafetyNex représente une avancée très intéressante pour les assureurs automobile. En effet, SafetyNex évite les dangers liés à une vitesse inadaptée aux difficultés de l’infrastructure, ce qui correspond à 75% des accidents de la route. SafetyNex est actuellement le seul système permettant de prévenir en temps réel et de façon prédictive le conducteur afin qu’il ralentisse pour éviter l’accident. SafetyNex répond ainsi aux critères des actions de prévention à mettre en œuvre, si bien qu’il est possible pour un assureur de déployer massivement SafetyNex sans aucune dépense supplémentaire. C’est une opportunité unique de réaliser une action de prévention efficace, tout en préparant la transition digitale du métier d’assurance.
Interview of Gérard Yahiaoui, Nexyad CEO
SafetyNex is a real time driving risk assessment smartphone App that warns (vocal alert) the driver before danger, letting time to slow down and avoid accident, and that records risk profiles and usage profiles on the NEXYAD cloud.
Road Safety studies show that SafetyNex can reduce by 20% accident rate (ref)
This smartphone App is disruptive, as it lets insurance companies and fleet management teams decrease the number of accident before they try any new digital pricing or strategy.
Of course, UBI is easy with SafetyNex because :
. usage is completely described
. risk profiles give : risk that the driver agrees to take, extertise level of the driver, lacks of anticipation of the driver
This conference at Cercle LAB (Laboratoire Assurance Banque) in Paris was very interesting and led to questions and new contacts with insurance companies (SafetyNex is under deployment and testing worldwide).
Gérard Yahiaoui presenting SafetyNex
Le Mans 24H Alpine run at night
Heads of Nexyad: Gérard Yahiaoui and Pierre Da Silva Dias
After the introduction of Gérard Bachelier – President of the CCI, Stéphane Masson – development manager of the Estaca presented the book « Mobility of the Future ». A round table moderated by Stéphane Parpinelli brought together Philippe Orvain – Vice President of Mov’eo for the IDF; Luc Marbach – Managing Director of Vedecom and Ghislain Delabie Mobility Connector for OuiShare. Dominique Levent, Director of the Institute for Sustainable Mobility for Renault, presented the latest advances in the manufacturer’s innovation strategy, before Lucie Ruchon, Assistant to the Delegate Director of Ile-de-France of Engie, explains the axes of innovation of the energy group.
Three Startups of the Yvelines presented their product :
. SafetyNex, the road safety App for Nexyad
. Electrical scooters for Pink Mobility
. A solution of shared mobility by Ecov
HappYnnov Round Table and presentation by Nexyad of SafetyNex App
Nexyad through these products such as the embedded and connected software SafetyNex, , helps to make the road safer for its users and others.
Acome is a manufacturer of cables, fiber optics and synthetic tubes. Specialist and market leader in networks. It is the leading European manufacturer of environmentally friendly and halogen-free high-tech automotive wires and cables approved by European manufacturers and its markets are expected to continue to grow rapidly with the advent of the connected vehicle.
Gérard Feldzer and Gérard Yahiaoui