Interpretation of Risk Profiles with SafetyNex
A new paper by Nexyad

ESTIMATION OF DRIVER’S EXPERTISE, OF RISK TAKEN CONSCIOUSLY BY THE DRIVER,
AND OF THE LACK OF ANTICIPATION AND MISUNDERSTANDING OF THE ROAD



By NEXYAD

Lire la version Française


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.

II – SafetyNex RISK PROFILES
SafetyNex estimates risk of driving at every instant.
Since SafetyNex also measures usages, it measures among other things the durations and the number of traveled kilometers.
One can then construct the curve Risk (t) which is the risk at each moment, and also the curve Risk (km) which is the risk at each point of the route.

Risk Distance

Risk Distance rated

Let’s consider one or the other of those curves, it is easy then to cut the risk into slots:

Risk 03

It is therefore possible to calculate the total duration spent [resp the total number of km carried out] with a risk
between 10% and 20%, for example (or between 50% and 60%). The graph of these durations [resp number of km] for each range of risk (0% -10%, 10% -20%, etc.), looks like :

Graph 4

It can be seen that this graph can be seperated into three parts:

Graph 05

. A very high bar of near zero risk
. A shape of « bell curve » comparable to a gaussian
. Rising at the very end towards high risks
NEXYAD has run over 3,500 testers since June 2016, and has been able to interpret the shapes of these curves.

III – INTERPRETATION OF SafetyNex RISK PROFILES : CONSENTED RISK, EXPERTISE OF DRIVING, LACK OF ANTICIPATION OF DRIVER
The large quasi-zero risk bar simply expresses the fact that overall the car is a safe mode of transportation.
The part that draws a bell curve has a more or less strong spread : we have noticed that experienced drivers have a narrow curve (repeatability of their driving style is high) while beginners have a huge spread (they can’t drive always the same way).
The centering of the bell curve (maximum likelihood) corresponds to the way in which the driver takes a controlled Risk : cautious beginners have a low maximum likelihood (they try to take as less risk as they can) while experienced drivers have a higher maximum likelihood : they know what risk level thay can cope with.
Finally, the values that go up to the right (tail of distribution of the curve in bell) correspond to the vocal alerts, that is to saycases where the driver has not fully understood that the risk is high. In other words, it is the lack of anticipation and misunderstanding of road.

IV – CONCLUSION
SafetyNex’s risk profiles make it possible to understand the kind of driver you have :
. Cautious / not cautious (maximum likelihood of the bell curve position)
. Experienced / beginner (spreading of the bell curve)
. Lack of anticipation / very good anticipation (queues of distribution of the curve in bell)
Fleet insurers and managers therefore have all the information that they need to help the driver.
For example, within the framework of prevention plans, offering training adapted to each type of risky driving.
We validated this information by driving 3,500 testers, including beginners, experienced drivers, and also pilots (who in take risks appearance, but in reality have a very safe driving). This allowed us to give these interpretations of SafetyNex’s risk profiles.
With the deployment of SafetyNex to reduce the number of accidents, professionals structurally gain margin, and can use this margin to analyze profiles, segment them, and find the segments where it may be interesting to develop UBI (Usage Based Insurance) and real time pricing fleet.
This multi-functionality of SafetyNex makes it a unique and effective tool for managing driving risks.

V – REFERENCES
[1] : THE ULTIMATE SOLUTION FOR INSURANCE COMPANIES THAT NEED ONBOARD RISK ASSESSMENT : SafetyNex

[2] : SMARTPHONE APP SafetyNex COULD REDUCE ACCIDENT RATE BY 20%

[3] : EXAMPLE OF SafetyNex RISK PROFILES

Nexyad invited to the 4th « Les rencontres du Fleet Management »

Last thursday 26th of january 2017, Gérard Yahiaoui CEO of Nexyad participated to a panel debate in Paris near Les Champs Elysées. He was invited as road safety telematics expert. Marie-Amélie Fenoll journalist at Decision Achats animated the discussion between other speakers : Jean-Yves Marie Rose of Ademe, Julien Honnart of Wayzup, Didier Blocus of ALD Automotive France, Edwin Colella and Alain Sinquin of Octo Telematics.

Fleet Management faces numerous problems and stakes in terms of safety, monitoring of drivers, training and loss costs. Gérard Yahiaoui presented SafetyNex App risk assessment in real time, that warns the driver before danger and gives individual and global risk profiles and usage profiles. An API of SafetyNex will be available very soon to integrate in any device. SafetyNex use allows to reduce accident rate by 20%.

Les rencontres du Fleet Management partners are ALD Automotive France, Ayming, Codes Rousseau, La carte carburant pro E. Leclerc, Octo Telematics and Phoenix development.

Gérard Yahiaoui Nexyadfrom the left Marie-Amélie Fenoll, Edwin Collela and Gérard Yahiaoui

Deep Changes in the Business of Car Insurance
Nexyad White Paper #3

« Deep changes in the business of car insurance.
Contribution of smartphone App SafetyNex in this global context. »

Version française

by NEXYAD
September 2016

1 – Role of the insurer
The insurance idea would have appeared on the occasion of the first great journey by boat, and the appearance of « modern » insurance is generally dated from the 19th century.
The principle of insurance is easy to understand : if accidents are rare (compared to the number of occurrences – travel, car trips, etc.), a simple and prudent idea then is to « put aside » a certain amount of money for each occurrence (which on average does not lead to an accident) and to use the money to repay the cost of the claim in case (rare) of accident.
One could imagine that individuals manage themselves each a « pot » of this type. Of course, even if an accident is rare, you never know when it happens and it may happen at any beginning of the process so that the pot is almost empty.
We could then easily make a common pot between several people, to smooth it : if three people make a common pot, it is unlikely that the three have an accident while starting hoarding. But… it is anyway possible. Although if the pot is conceived with hundreds of thousands of people there, you secure the problem of « instant » of the accident. This is the « law of large numbers », which allows a deterministic modeling of chance : the odds. It remains to define the amount of money to set aside each month for example (or each travel).
To handle this (a pot shared by hundreds of thousands of contributors, the estimated sum to put aside, etc…), it is obvious that it is necessary to have qualified personnel, sufficient… and finally, it happens naturally to the idea of the Insurance Company.

Read the entire paper

Modification profonde du métier de l’assurance auto
Nexyad Livre Blanc n°3

Modification profonde du métier de l’assurance auto.
Apport de l’App smartphone SafetyNex dans ce contexte global.

Par NEXYAD
Sept 2016

English translation

1 – Rôle de l’assureur

L’idée d’assurance serait apparue à l’occasion des premiers grands voyages maritimes, et l’apparition
« moderne » de l’assurance est généralement datée du 19ème siècle.
Le principe de l’assurance est le suivant : si les accidents sont rares (comparativement au nombre
d’occurrences : de voyages, de trajets automobile, etc.), une idée simple et prudente consiste alors à « mettre de côté » une certaine somme pour chaque occurrence (qui en moyenne ne conduit pas à un accident) de manière à utiliser cette somme pour rembourser le coût du sinistre en cas (rare) d’accident.
On pourrait imaginer que les particuliers gèrent eux-mêmes chacun une « cagnotte » de ce type. Bien sûr, même si un accident est rare, on ne sait jamais quand il arrive et il se peut qu’il arrive au tout début du processus si bien que la cagnotte est presque vide.
On peut alors facilement faire une cagnotte commune entre plusieurs personnes, pour lisser ce problème : si trois personnes font une cagnotte commune, il est peu probable que les trois
aient un accident au tout départ de la thésaurisation. Mais … c’est quand-même possible. On conçoit bien que si l’on construit la cagnotte avec plusieurs centaines de milliers de personnes, là
on a sécurisé le problème du « moment » de l’accident. C’est la loi des grands nombres qui permet d’utiliser une modélisation déterministe du hasard : les probabilités. Reste à définir le montant de la somme à mettre de côté, chaque mois par exemple (ou à chaque trajet).

Lire le livre blanc ici

Newsletter #11 is available

The Nexyad Automotive & Transportation Newsletter #11


SafetyNex the Driving Force of Nexyad Products


Headlines :

– Future Events
– Accident fatalities in Tesla car
– White paper « Vehicle Telematics, Measurement of Risk in Driving, Respect of Individual Freedoms »
– A scale model car to test ADAS
– SafetyNex available on App Store and Google Play Store end of october

Read the Newsletter

SafetyNex the Driving Force of Nexyad Onboard Products

NEXYAD Automotive & Transportation Newsletter #11, August the 24th, 2016



Headlines :

– Future Events

– Accident fatalities in Tesla car : NEXYAD modules might prevent accident.

– White paper « Vehicle Telematics, Measurement of Risk in Driving, Respect of Individual Privacy » (Auto Insurance and ADAS applications)

– A scale model car to test ADAS (ADAS validation)

– SafetyNex available on App Store and Google Play Store end of october



Future Events

NEXYAD at the Mondial de l’Automobile 2016, october 5th.

NEXYAD will be on Mondial de l’Automobile 2016 at Paris, october 5th invited by BMW on BMW booth.
After have been choosen as one of the three winners of BMW Techdate Challenge 2016.
Mondial Nexyad

Reminder : BMW Techdate wished to push ahead the french innovative high tech and identify new partners for technology matters. After a picky skimming, 20 startups were selected to present their project in front of a professional panel of Automotive, mobility, and connected car experts.
The quality of SafetyNex impressed the jury and the 9th june, BMW France announced Nexyad as part of the 3 winners of the first Techdate Challenge with Oridao and Sentryo.

BMW Techdate winner
Gérard Yahiaoui, Nexyad CEO

Reporter Stephane Soumier invited Serge Naudin CEO of BMW Group France and Gerard Yahiaoui CEO of Nexyad at « Good Morning Business » on the major french TV Channel BFM Business.

BFM Business
From left to right : Serge Naudin, Stéphane Soumier, Gérard Yahiaoui


NEXYAD will visit Automotive major companies in Germany

Four french competitive clusters, Mov’eo, ID4CAR, LUBT and Véhicule du futur organized a new mission for their members : The International Partnership Approach. NEXYAD will take part of it.

Onboard Systems for the Connected and Smart Car – 28th november / 1st december 2016

The delegation will visit BMW, AUDI, CONTINENTAL, DAIMLER, BOSCH, PORSCHE, and the University of Nuremberg… in the cities of Munich, Regensburg, Nuremberg and Stuttgart.
Mission Germany

More information here


NEXYAD at the next CES in Las Vegas 5-8 January, 2O17
CES 2017


All lights are green for SafetyNex App on Smartphone
Four french Insurance companies are currently testing SafetyNex.

Since end of june 2016, it is possible to ask NEXYAD for a test (30 days) of SafetyNex App on Android Smartphone.

Do not hesitate to request.
TRY IT !
SafetyNex for IOS (Iphone) will be available at the end of september.



Accident fatalities in Tesla car : NEXYAD modules might prevent accident.

Accident fatalities in a TESLA car might have been avoided by using software modules of NEXYAD : the time for monitoring circuit has come.
By NEXYAD

Processing circuit, informing auto-pilot systems, control, etc … from perception, data fusion, decision-making, and automatic control of actuators, are usually very well designed, and based on high-performance modules. But unfortunately, this is not enough to void the risk of accidents. Indeed, for the treatment of this risk, it lacks a parallel circuit (parallel and independent) called « monitoring » circuit.
To understand this need for a monitoring circuit, one must first understand the level of complexity of a road scene viewed from a camera.

The variability of road scenes is actually much more than what a normal person comes to imagine. Indeed, a color image, which has eight bits for each colors (then, 24-bit, as there are 3 colors) may encode 224 different color levels per pixel (more than 65,000 different possible values). HD video has more than 2 million pixels.
This means that the matrix of HD 8-bit color image may encode more than 65 0002 000 000 images !
This huge number is simply unimaginable.

Read the entire paper

Accidented Tesla
http://www.nextinpact.com/news/100804-accident-mortel-tesla-model-s-roulait-trop-vite-enquete-se-poursuit.htm



White paper « Vehicle Telematics, Measurement of Risk in Driving, Respect of Individual Privacy » (Auto Insurance and ADAS applications)

SafetyNex for Insurance

« Vehicle Telematics, measurement of risk in driving, respect of individual privacy » is the new white paper from Nexyad, which explains important points to check on a vehicle telematics application to assess the risk taken by the driver about his driving task.

The calculation of risk requires having contextualized data that are inherently confidential, personal, and therefore which must in no case be recorded on computer servers in a cloud as they contain, directly or indirectly, information about offenses (in France it is forbidden: by respect of the criminal code and rules CNIL).

Onboard-measurement-of-risk-of-accident-with-SafetyNet-real-time-risk-assessment.pdf



A scale model car to test ADAS (ADAS validation)

NEXYAD will use a scale model car for ADAS and driverless software modules testing & validation.

Nexyad built their own intelligent scale model of car integrating a camera and telecommunications to a PC running the RT-MAPS framework (by INTEMPORA).

Scale Model Car Nexyad

The PC runs real world detection software modules of NEXYAD into the framework RT-MAPS. Then the
scale model car can evoluate on a scale model landscape where it is easy to generate complex use cases
such as sun rising and other perturbations that are not easy to record in the real world and that are not that easy to simulate.

Beside, Nexyad built a testing and validation database that will represent thousands of million km of natural driving with the fewest number of vids as possible.
NB : this NEXYAD validation database will be available for free to every research and development team in the world on the NEXYAD web site.

Database

This database will be used by NEXYAD of course to test and validate their own software modules for ADAS and Driverless cars :
. RoadNex for road detection
. ObstaNex for obstacles detection
. ObstaNex BiCam for obstacles detection using 2 cams
. VisiNex for visibility measurement
. SafetyNex for real time onboard risk assessment

This database is the result of a advanced methodology published in the 90’s by Nexyad Founder. The methodology « AGENDA » allows to build and validate camera-based complex detection and recognition systems (for ADAS and driverless cars).
This methodology was recently re-published and presented in different symposiums in Europe to show exactly how it may be used by car manufacturers and their OEMs.



SafetyNex available on
App Store and Google Play Store end of october

SafetyNex One Pager

Interest for the driver :
. SafetyNex warns you when there is a danger ahead in function of your car speed (save your health or your life)
. SafetyNex warns you when your speed is over legal limitation (save your money and your driving licence)

Interest for Insurance Companies :
. SafetyNex provides qualified data as histogram of risk taken by the driver, eco driving score, statistics of usages, contingency tables, etc.

Interests for car manufacturers :
. SafetyNex can be used as ADAS for customers
. SafetyNex gives the risk taken by the robot driver of future Autonomous Car

AVAILABLE END OF OCTOBER ON :
Stores

More information

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.


Nexyad RoadNex v2.3 – Road Detection for ADAS : Highway Dark Night

Nexyad RoadNex v2.3 – Road Detection for ADAS, Autonomous Vehicle & Connected Car on Highway by Dark Night.


RoadNex detects the lane and the road surface and does not depend on the level of equipment of road infrastructure. Here, low light and poor contrast don’t prevent detection.

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.

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

SafetyNex & EcoGyzer : the Quiet-Dangerous 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 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 & EcoGyzer : the Bad 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 Bad Driver :



Le CCFA parle de Nexyad

Le Comité des Constructeurs Français d’Automobiles CCFA a repris LES ECHOS
à la Une de son site internet :

CCFA
« Le smartphone peut-il améliorer la sécurité au volant ? »

Lire l’article ici

Onboard road safety/risk Measurement correlated to accidents



Onboard road safety/risk Measurement correlated to accidents :
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 :


Validation Database New
Road Detection & Road Safety
NEXYAD tools for ADAS

NEXYAD Automotive & Transportation Newsletter #4, the 7th of September 2015



Validation database for camera-based ADAS

The company NEXYAD started building a database for validation of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS and Autonomous car) using the methodology AGENDA published in the 90 by Gérard Yahiaoui (methodology initially developped for control construction of learning and test databases for the implementation of artificial neural networks).
This database has two essential characteristics:

1) Known life situations
Indeed, the methodology AGENDA proposes to describe potential changes of signals and images came into factors of variability and their crosses.
Example, for obstacle detection :
   . weather (dry overcast, sunny weather, rain, fog)
   . overall brightness (low, medium, high)
   . speed of the carrier vehicle (low, moderate, high)
   . type of road (highway, road with marking, road without marking …)
   . coating (bitumen 1, bitumen 2, …, cobblestones)
   . day / night (headlights and the lights switched infrastructure)
   . season (spring, summer, autumn, winter)
   . etc …

      > type of obstacle :
           – stopped
                      . infrastructure-related: work terminals, tolls, …
                      . related users: tire on the road, parcel felt from a truck lying on the road, biker following a road                       accident, disabled vehicle stopped on the floor, standing pedestrian on roadside edge (dodger /                       no sniper)
           – moving
                      . truck, car, vulnerable (pedestrian, bicycle, motorcycle) each with types trajectories (longitudinal
                      in rolling direction, longitudinally in the opposite direction of rolling side) and position (opposite
                      to right, left).
                      . Etc…

We see that if we cross these factors, we find fairly quickly a huge number of cases. However, the development of ADAS systems is complex, and it is necessary to proceed by successive iterations, starting from simple situations to move to complicated situations.
Our database allows this, since all records are described in terms of crossing the terms of the factors of variability. Thus knows exactly which cases were tested or not by the system.
Formalism ‘crossing of variability factors of the terms’ allows using design of experiments, and in particular orthogonal fractional plans to sharply reduce the number of cases to be tested while ensuring maximum coverage of life situations. One can in this context to develop a fractional ADAS on an orthogonal plan and test other hard fractional orthogonal planes for example.

2) Reality reference
This is to crop images barriers and infrastructure elements (markings, roadsides, etc.) so as to constitute a reference to measure system performance.

. Examples of life situations:
Life Situations


1.1, summer, overcast, unmarked road, moderate speed tire on the floor, dry weather
1.2, summer, overcast, unmarked road, moderate speed, parcels on the floor, dry weather
2.1, summer, overcast , unmarked road, moderate speed, standing pedestrians non ambush at the edges of the floor, dry weather
2.2, summer, overcast, unmarked road, moderate speed, lying on the floor human, dry weather
etc …

Not sure that you would meet those few cases, even with on million kilometers on open roads.



Our Goal

NEXYAD starts his collection of images and data:
      . video (towards the front of the vehicle) Color
      . accelerometers
      . gyros

The files are synchronized by RT-MAPS tool INTEMPORA society.
The files are saved as RT-MAPS format and replayable directly by this tool.

NEXYAD currently looking for contributors on this internal project. Co contributors fund and in return free access to the database, unlimited in time. This contribution will accelerate the work of collecting and labeling.
NEXYAD wishes to provide this basis before June 2016, free way to give the material to the community and the ADAS autonomous vehicle for a smaller version of the database, and pay way (as subscriptions) for complete database.
NEXYAD’s ambition is to spread its methodological expertise and allow everyone to assess the performance of vision systems for ADAS, whether systems developed by NEXYAD, or others.

References
“Methodology for ADAS Validation: Potential Contribution of Other Scientific Fields Which Have Already Answered the Same Questions”, Gérard Yahiaoui, Pierre Da Silva Dias, CESA congress Dec 2014, Paris, proc. Springer Verlag
“Methods and tools for ADAS validation”, Gérard Yahiaoui, Nicolas du Lac, Safetyweek congress, May 2015, Aschaffenburg


Contact
For questions, or if you wish to become a contributor, please contact NEXYAD : +33 139041360


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Road detection for ADAS and autonomous vehicle :
NEXYAD module RoadNex V2.1

A useful complement to markings detection

The detection of the road is a key element of driver assistance systems (ADAS) and autonomous vehicles.
Indeed, objects, obstacles, other road users, must be detected but also positioned relatively to the road.
The detection of the entire route, that is to say not only its markings or edges, but all the way, should enable
embedded intelligence to select appropriate action.

The company NEXYAD has been working on this issue for over 20 years without interruption, and has accumulated a large number of cases of road types, of coatings, in various atmospheric conditions.
This is to detect the rollable area on the road, without regard to, in a first step, lane markings.
Indeed, in Europe, there are many unmarked roads, and work on a marked road may change the markings and
make a « follow the markings strategy » dangerous.

In the images below you can see on the left a typical French countryside road with no markings, and on the right image, new markings was achieved while former markings still strongly visible.
Road without MarkingRoad with old and new Markings

These cases are quite common on our European roads and a driver assistance system, or a driving delegation
system, must at least understand such cases and if necessary tell the driver to cope with it by himself.

The NEXYAD road detection module, RoadNex V2.1 is a brick to go further to cope with these cases :
RoadNex V2.1

RoadNex V2.1 should be coupled with road signs detection, road markings detection, obstacle detection, in order to build an intelligent perception system. RoadNex is then a key module of such a system.

The road detection module NEXYAD, RoadNex V2.1 is available as a component into the asynchronous real time framework RT-MAPS : See HERE


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Road Safety for ADAS and autonomous vehicle :
NEXYAD module SafetyNex running as real-time component
of Framework RT-Maps

SafetyNex (safety level estimation for ADAS)
SafetyNex Onboard is a high level functional bloc (software) of safety measurement, taking into account map and GPS geolocation (shape of the road, crossing roads, … ahead), speed, accelerations, visibility, adherence, distance to obstacle, etc.
SafetyNex measures adaptation of the driving style to infrastructure topology, and possibly Dangerous situations.
Two main applications :
_ Car industry : intelligent Navigation system providing valuable advices to keep the car in a good level of safety; sending alarms on dangers
_ Insurance : driving style measurment correlated with accidentology (insurance pricing, Pay How You Drive)

SafetyNex is now running in RT-Maps by IMTEMPORA
SafetyNex is under fusion with Ecogyzer (eco driving rating system) : this « package » will be the ultimate tool for eco and safe driving combination.

SafetyNex V2.1
SafetyNex v2.1

Special announcement : the Nexyad software SafetyNex is being developed for RT-Maps of Intempora

SafetyNex is a high level functional bloc (sofware) for ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) : onboard measurement of driving behaviour, taking into account map and GPS geolocation (shape of the road, crossing roads, … ahead), speed, accelerations, visibility, adherence, distance to obstacle, etc.

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Very soon on RT-Maps…