Solving traffic challenges with communicating cars

“I worked further on my research on safety requirements for highly automated cars. During this exploration, I improved and generalised the widely known Responsibility-Sensitive Safety (RSS) model for longitudinal driving, in other words, vehicles that drive in a row. This model uses math to determine a safe distance to avoid rear-end collisions. RSS has become the backbone of Mobileye’s driving policy, and it is a globally recognised company in the automotive industry owned by Intel. Mobileye’s technologies are deployed in over 65 million vehicles worldwide.”

How can cooperative vehicle technology and wireless communication help in case of accidents?

“According to the most optimistic assessments, up to 90 per cent of traffic accidents can be eliminated by autonomous vehicles. Thus, some accidents still may occur. I developed a framework that allows cooperative vehicles to make the best decision in the case of a potential accident. In other words, to determine the best course of action in the accident to, for example, minimise overall harm or redistribute it among all involved actors fairly. This becomes possible if vehicles communicate and cooperate with each other using V2X communication.”

“Imagine an example of three autonomous vehicles driving along the road. These vehicles may vary in terms of the number of passengers they carry. If a pedestrian suddenly enters the road, the first vehicle must stop abruptly to avoid hitting the person. A crash might be unavoidable if the distances between these three vehicles are not long enough. In such a case, the vehicles can cooperate to find the best course of action and save the most people. In other words, my framework, called ‘ethical V2X’, helps decide how the crash should occur to meet formalised ethical criteria.”