Now driverless simulation providers are bastardizing ISO 26262 to mislead the industry
Recently Applied Intuition announced it had been certified to the highest tool confidence level (TCL) 3. Here is their announcement — https://blog.applied.co/blog-post/iso-26262
(On 11/28/2021 AiMotive announced the same thing — https://aimotive.com/-/aisim-integrates-ros)
I created the SAE ORAD Simulation Task Force. The goal of that task force is to create standards to assist the industry in understanding what factors go into simulation and how to tell if their various model’s fidelity meets the needs of the associated scenarios. This also includes real-time operations. Applied Intuition is not on that task force by choice. TUV NORD nor AiMotive are either. And like every simulation company in THIS industry, Applied Intuition uses a real-time architecture and modeling approach that precludes true high fidelity model creation and use. (See more below in my first article.) This means they cannot be (TCL) 3. The problem here of course is there is no industry criteria to determine this. (Hence the SAE task force) and very few people in the industry know what that means or that aerospace/DoD have had technology for over 25 years that can provide it. So, they lower the bar to meet the echo chamber. The problem here of course is this enables the industries untenable over reliance on the real-world to create autonomous vehicles. That in turn creates an untenable situation from a cost, time, and safety POV. Meaning, no one will get close to L4 because they will go bankrupt or kill too many people needlessly to survive long enough to go bankrupt. (My second article below explains that in detail.) To make matters worse I have talked to most of the AV makers and simulation companies in this industry and told them what they need to do to get their systems where they need to be. This includes Applied Intuition. (Who now has $175 million more in funding. A fraction of which is needed to upgrade their system.) Why won’t these folks do the right thing? They do not want to admit their systems have fundamental flaws and they were misleading their customers. And their egos and ethical fortitude are snot stout enough to help them overcome that hurdle. This will all end in avoidable tragedies both through the use of the current inferior simulation systems and ironically, their lack of use because the industry knows they aren’t good enough and are forced to over rely on the real-world. Quite the perfect storm isn’t it?
Please find more information below
How the failed Iranian hostage rescue in 1980 can save the Autonomous Vehicle industry
The Autonomous Vehicle Industry can be Saved by doing the Opposite of what is being done now to create this technology
Simulation Photorealism is almost Irrelevant for Autonomous Vehicle Development and Testing
Using the Real World is better than Proper Simulation for Autonomous Vehicle Development — NONSENSE
SAE Autonomous Vehicle Engineering Magazine — Simulation’s Next Generation (featuring Dactle)
· https://www.sae.org/news/2020/08/new-gen-av-simulation
My name is Michael DeKort — I am a former system engineer, engineering and program manager for Lockheed Martin. I worked in aircraft simulation, the software engineering manager for all of NORAD, the Aegis Weapon System, and on C4ISR for DHS.
Industry Participation — Air and Ground
- Founder SAE On-Road Autonomous Driving Simulation Task Force
- Member SAE ORAD Verification and Validation Task Force
- Member UNECE WP.29 SG2 Virtual Testing
- Stakeholder USDOT VOICES (Virtual Open Innovation Collaborative Environment for Safety)
- Member SAE G-34 / EUROCAE WG-114 Artificial Intelligence in Aviation
- Member CIVATAglobal — Civic Air Transport Association
- Stakeholder for UL4600 — Creating AV Safety Guidelines
- Member of the IEEE Artificial Intelligence & Autonomous Systems Policy Committee
- Presented the IEEE Barus Ethics Award for Post 9/11 DoD/DHS Whistleblowing Efforts
