Waymo does seem very disciplined.
However, on this:
"Waymo's car requires about an order of magnitude fewer interventions from safety drivers."
I'm a little skeptical about using interventions per x-distance as a metric for comparison.
There's just too many different things that could skew that. Like driving the same routes over and over. Or more/less stringent rules about when to trigger intervention. Or choosing when not to drive, like poor weather. Or purposely choosing difficult scenarios and edge cases for your routes.
Wow, finally someone taking vehicle system security seriously! I always find it terrifying that most car manufacturers seem to have no problem with tying safety-critical systems in with the entertainment system and pushing OTA updates to them.
> are shielded from, and inaccessible from, the vehicle's wireless connections and systems."
Does this mean totally isolated with no connection or generally inaccessible but only really at the software level and if you overflow the right buffer with the right bytes you might be able to connect.
I wonder how the different error modes are detected so the redundant systems can take over.
Re:Waymo's big self-drive car report
by icebraining on Sunday October 15, 2017 @08:49AM
(#15476892)
For a glimpse of that, this interview with a responsible for System Health Management for NASA rockets is interesting: http://omegataupodcast.net/100-system-health-mgt/
mutual watchdogs?
But what do they look at? If the failure mode for example is that the steering signal always signals half a degree more to the left in left turns than necessary, would the watchdog see that and takeover? How does it know that IT'S sensing mechanism isn't broken?
What does it mean to "tack-on" self driving? Did Waymo engineer their physical vehicle differently from other companies in some way that helps self driving? I don't think they ever claimed this.
The latest statistics suggest that Waymo's car requires about an order of magnitude fewer interventions from safety drivers. If these systems are a key reason for that or will further boost their safety records, it will be a long while before competitors can catch up.
"Waymo says it has done extensive work to make sure that computer crashes don't lead to car crashes. All of the key systems on its cars—the computer, brakes, steering systems, and batteries—have backups ready to take over if the main system fails."
"Safety-critical aspects of Waymo's vehicles—e.g. steering, braking, controllers—are isolated from outside communication," Waymo writes. "For example, both the safety-critical computing that determines vehicle movements and the onboard 3D maps are shielded from, and inaccessible from, the vehicle's wireless connections and systems."