Online Verification of Automated Road Vehicles Using Reachability Analysis

TLDR

The paper proposes an online formal verification approach for automated vehicle safety during operation. The method uses reachability analysis to predict all possible occupancies of the vehicle and surrounding traffic, accounting for sensor noise, disturbances, and uncertain initial states. The approach guarantees safety under modeled uncertainties and was validated in test drives at Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Institute.

Abstract

An approach for formally verifying the safety of automated vehicles is proposed. Due to the uniqueness of each traffic situation, we verify safety online, i.e., during the operation of the vehicle. The verification is performed by predicting the set of all possible occupancies of the automated vehicle and other traffic participants on the road. In order to capture all possible future scenarios, we apply reachability analysis to consider all possible behaviors of mathematical models considering uncertain inputs (e.g., sensor noise, disturbances) and partially unknown initial states. Safety is guaranteed with respect to the modeled uncertainties and behaviors if the occupancy of the automated vehicle does not intersect that of other traffic participants for all times. The applicability of the approach is demonstrated by test drives with an automated vehicle at the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.