Autonomous vehicle technology developer StreetDrone has published a 30-page report titled Putting Safety First in Autonomous Vehicles. In particular StreetDrone places a greater reliance on vehicle hardware.
According to the company, the purpose of the report is to make an experience-based contribution to CAV safety development to ultimately expedite the commercialization and implemention of autonomous vehicles in society. This includes StreetDrone’s experience in operating autonomous vehicle trials in urban environments, which it believes provides a unique perspective in deploying these vehicles in high population density areas and settings with complex infrastructure.
The report – essentially for reading by anyone with an interest in the development of autonomous vehicle technologies, especially public transportation and delivery companies, civic authorities and universities – is freely available for download here.
Mike Potts, StreetDrone’s CEO, said, “This is a difficult time for everyone. While we’ve had to make some changes to our operations due to COVID-19, we’ve also had the opportunity to write our safety report based on the experience of building and running autonomous vehicles over the past three years of StreetDrone’s operations. This experience spans the full stack of autonomous vehicle disciplines from hardware and mechanical design through to AI and software, as well as a deep insight into city center public highway trials.
“For an organization focused on ‘zone 1’ urban trials, we have been safety-led, so our report encapsulates much of this knowledge. We believe that industry collaboration and knowledge-sharing are essential pre-requisites for CAV technology to achieve wide-scale adoption – and we’re therefore delighted to make our own contribution to this growing body of knowledge.
“Importantly, the paper also reflects the company’s clear opinion that too often the vehicle element of the autonomous technology stack is not fully considered. In the safety report, we propose a set of rules for the automotive safety factors that address what we consider to be a systemic oversight across the industry of these vital hardware considerations.”
Beyond the core hardware and mechanical considerations, the StreetDrone safety report also discusses multiple other areas for the safe operation of autonomous vehicles including the definition of a safe operating environment, minimum operating standards for safety drivers, and a set of open data protocols for effective error tracking and rectification.