USDrobotics

Safe Control Systems for Autonomous Vehicles

If our primary goal for our vehicle is safety, the first thing we have to do is define what that means. Our goal is to make “Human-Friendly” a standard as stringent as UL labeling to identify a Drobotic vehicle as opposed to a drone. It’s OK dad, it’s a Drobot. First, Drobots are controlled by TrackPaths, not flown by humans. TrackPaths contain a “hard fence” concept where the vehicle is guaranteed not to cross the hard fence without positive control. Second, the control electronics in the safety systems are all hardware, not software, and the probability of failure of those electronics have to be calculated at less than 0.0000000001 in 1000 hours of operation. Third, no SPF or Single Point of Failure. Everything has a backup. Fourth Terminal Flight Avoidance / Positive Control means that even if the bird is coming down, it is still capable of looking for clear landing space or deploying some mechanism to mitigate terminal velocity and force of impact. Finally, privacy. People all over the country (and world) are reporting being “spied on” by drones in their own back yards. Drobotic vehicles have image sensors but are not allowed to store or transmit any images of what they see. These will be the points of future legislation.