Improving Safety of Autonomous Vehicles: A Verifiable Method for Graceful Degradation of Decision and Control Responsibilities

Developing safe and reliable autonomous vehicles is crucial for addressing contemporary mobility challenges. While the goal of autonomous vehicle development is full autonomy, up to SAE Level 4 and beyond, human intervention remains necessary in critical or unfamiliar driving scenarios. This article introduces a method for gracefully degrading system functionality and seamlessly transferring decision-making and control between the autonomous system and a remote safety operator when needed. This transfer is enabled by an onboard dependability cage, which continuously monitors the vehicle’s performance during its operation. The cage communicates with a remote command control center, allowing for remote supervision and intervention by a safety driver. We assess this methodology in both lab and test field settings in a case study of last-mile parcel delivery logistics and discuss the insights and results obtained from these evaluations.