Re:A submarine's weakness: its software?
by Jtsummers on Tuesday December 07, 2021 @05:05PM
(#29478808)
> I imagine it's similar here. Do you want the sub to move up automatically? To fire an alarm? To dissalow a maneuver? Absolutely not. Imagine a crew knowingly pushing their vehicle into potentially dangerous maneuvers and spending those critical moments fighting the vehicle or disabling alarms.
These kind of systems typically have manual overrides. If the operator truly believes they know best (or are in an exceptional situation that the automated system cannot account for), they can override the automated system (including many, if not most, safeguards). That's design 101 when you're building critical systems.
Re:A submarine's weakness: its software?
by jvanderbot on Tuesday December 07, 2021 @05:09PM
(#29478844)
I imagine there are systems which are much more mature and un-intrusive, but my limited experience with the space has been quite negative.
He was there because they were asking for software to help them sift through the cacophony of constantly-firing alarms which were distracting all their staff playing whack-a-mole "disable" and ruining situational awareness.
I imagine it's similar here. Do you want the sub to move up automatically? To fire an alarm? To dissalow a maneuver? Absolutely not. Imagine a crew knowingly pushing their vehicle into potentially dangerous maneuvers and spending those critical moments fighting the vehicle or disabling alarms.
This is how the "stick pusher" causes crashes on airplanes.
The fault lies with whomever commanded the maneuver, not with the ship for doing a minor mutiny to prevent it.
Now, as a counterpoint, see the f-16 auto-maneuver (I think this is a representative link): https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA583778.pdf