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GCRI · Intelligence artificielle et systèmes autonomes

Systèmes physiques autonomes

Autonomous vehicles, drones, industrial and service robots sense their surroundings and act in the physical world, where errors can injure people and damage property. Their safety depends on perception, decision-making, fallback behaviour and the environments they are allowed to operate in. This page sets out how autonomous physical systèmes fail, how their safety is assessed, and what evidence serves the regulators, operators and communities involved.

01Registre

Autonomous physical systems on the record.

02La question

Autonomous physical systems: how the risk develops.

Robots, sensors and controls. The dossier below sets out how the risk develops, what is measured, where the data come from, how it is modelled and who decides.

Mécanisme

Perception meets the unexpected

Sensors and models misread rare situations: unusual objects, poor weather, glare or confusing road layouts. Rare cases dominate risk because they are hard to test.

Mécanisme

Operating domains set limits

systèmes are designed for an operational design domain of roads, weather, speeds or spaces. Failures increase when systems are used outside it.

Mécanisme

Handover to humans is hard

Supervisors lose attention when automation works most of the time, and cannot take over instantly when it fails.

Mécanisme

Safety cases must be argued

Showing that a system is acceptably safe needs a structured argument combining design, testing, simulation and field data, because driving or operating enough to see rare failures is impractical.

03Suivi

Agent oversight console.

L'écran qu'une équipe utiliserait pour suivre ce sujet : ses mesures, ses états et ses décisions. Les noms sont des exemples et les valeurs sont illustratives.

Agent oversight console

Autonomous physical systems · Agent sandbox · Session AG-7276

Human approval pendingGCRI · Intelligence artificielle et systèmes autonomes

Tool calls

  1. 10:27Infosearch(documents) · read-only
  2. 10:20Inforun_model(flood_nowcast) · sandbox
  3. 10:39Jalonsend_message(external) · needs approval
  4. 10:45Errorwrite_file(outside workspace) · denied

Politiques

Périmètre
workspace only
External actions
human approval
Spend limit
11 units
Kill switch
Armed

Actions by approval class

050100count this weekAutoConsignéApprouvéDeniedRemonté
Agent oversight console: the screen’s structure, terms and states for Autonomous physical systems.Noms donnés à titre d'exemple et valeurs illustratives ; une conception, non un enregistrement ni un système en service.
04À travers les domaines

Autonomous machines operate in physical domains with physical risks.

Findings are designed for the série Labs Evidence. SAE J3016 defines levels of driving automation, and the EU Machinery Regulation (2023) addresses machines with self-evolving behaviour.

  • Field safety incident data.
  • Test protocols for autonomy in unstructured settings.
05Méthodes et preuves

How autonomous physical systems is modelled, measured and tested.

Le modèle, ses hypothèses, ses données et son incertitude, sous la forme qu'un scientifique ou un ingénieur vérifierait. Les structures suivent des méthodes publiées. Les valeurs représentées sont illustratives, ce ne sont pas des résultats.

Modèle de système

The couplings between the systems in autonomous physical systems: signs of influence, a reinforcing and a balancing loop, and cross-links where stress jumps.

++−+Intelligence artificielleDonnéesCommunautésÉconomieR renforçanteB équilibrage
Causal loop diagram from the page’s systems; signs show the direction of influence. Illustrative structure for a system dynamics or network model, not estimated couplings.
Principes directeurs FAIR · GO FAIR et FORCE11W3C PROV · World Wide Web ConsortiumOrientations sur le traitement cohérent des incertitudes · GIECCEOS Analysis Ready Data · Comité sur les satellites d'observation de la Terre
06Indicateurs

Ce qui est mesuré, et avec quelle qualité.

Chaque indicateur porte son unité, sa périodicité, le type de source qui le sous-tend et l'étiquette de preuve que porterait une valeur. Aucune valeur n'est affichée : un programme les fournit sous sa propre autorité.

IndicateurUnitéFréquenceType de sourceÉtiquette
Crashes involving automated driving systèmescount by severitymensuelMandatory crash reportingStatistiques publiées
Disengagements or interventionscount per distance or hourannuelOperator reports to regulatorsDÉCLARÉ
Distance driven autonomouslykilometresannuelOperator reportsDÉCLARÉ
Industrial robot injuriesnombreannuelOccupational injury statisticsStatistiques publiées
Operating domain exceedancescount of events outside design domainper deploymentOperator logsOBSERVÉ
Drone incidents near aircraftnombreannuelAviation safety reportingDÉCLARÉ
07Sources

D'où proviennent les données probantes.

Jeux de données publics et registres institutionnels nommés, chacun avec sa catégorie de licence. Les sources fournies dans le cadre d'accords ne sont utilisées que selon leurs conditions et ne sont jamais republiées.

SourcesCe qu'elle apporteCatégorie de licence
NHTSA Standing General Order crash reportsCrashes involving automated driving and driver assistance systèmes in the USPublic domain, US government
California DMV autonomous vehicle reportsCollision and disengagement reports from permit holdersRegistres publics
UNECE regulations on automated driving, including UN Regulation No. 157Type approval requirements for automated lane keeping and related systemsPublic, UNECE terms
ISO 10218 et ISO/TS 15066Safety requirements for industrial and collaborative robotsLicensed standards, purchase required
National occupational injury statisticsInjuries involving machinery and robotsPublic records, licence per government
08Décisions

Qui décide, et à quoi servent les données probantes.

Studio Intelligence artificielle et systèmes prepares evidence. The decisions below are taken by the authorities named, under their own rules, and never by the platform.

Qui décideLa questionDonnées probantes servies par cette page
Transport and aviation regulatorsWhether and where to permit autonomous operationCrash data with exposure; safety case reviews
Workplace safety regulatorsWhat safety requirements to set for robotsInjury statistics; standards
Operators and manufacturersHow to define and enforce operating domainsDomain documentation; exceedance logs

Résultats que produit ce thème

  • Safety case review frameworks
  • Analyses of crash and intervention reports with exposure stated
  • Operational design domain documentation templates
  • Evidence notes for regulators
09Questions essentielles

What safety engineers ask.

  • Does the system perceive its environment correctly across weather, lighting and unusual objects?
  • How does it behave at the edges of its operating conditions, and does it know when it is outside them?
  • Can it fail safely, handing over to a person or stopping without creating new hazards?
  • How is safety demonstrated when learned components cannot be fully specified?
10Mécanismes

Where physical autonomy fails.

Perception is the weak link: cameras, lidar and radar each fail differently in rain, glare, dust or darkness, and learned perception models can misclassify rare objects. Planning must handle uncertain predictions of other agents’ behaviour. Control must remain stable as conditions change.

Handover to humans is difficult because people monitoring automation lose situational awareness and may not respond in time. Classical safety engineering assumes components whose behaviour can be fully specified, which learned components are not.

11Méthodes et données

Assurance for systems that move.

  1. 01

    Domaine de conception opérationnel

    Defining the conditions a system is designed for and detecting when it leaves them.

  2. 02

    Simulation and scenario testing

    Testing across large numbers of simulated scenarios, using robotique et l'automatisation and high-performance, cloud and edge computing. Simulation fidelity limits what it can reveal.

  3. 03

    Safety cases

    Structured arguments, supported by evidence, that a system is acceptably safe for a use, drawing on Ingénierie de l'évaluation et de l'assurance de l'IA. A safety case is only as strong as its weakest evidence.

  4. 04

    Field monitoring

    Collecting incidents and near misses after deployment. Under-reporting is common.

13Where this page’s references

Where this page’s references lead.

Les organismes et documents à l'aune desquels cette page se lit. Les statuts et éditions changent ; chaque lien mène à l'organisme émetteur.

14Questions

Questions et réponses.

What is an operational design domain?
The conditions under which an automated system is designed to operate, such as road types, speeds, weather and time of day.
Are self-driving cars safer than human drivers?
Evidence is still accumulating. Fair comparison needs crash data with matched exposure, road types and conditions, which public reports often lack.
What is a safety case?
A structured argument, supported by evidence, that a system is acceptably safe for a specific use in a specific environment.
Are autonomous vehicles safer than human drivers?
It depends on the system, the conditions and how safety is measured. Comparisons need like-for-like conditions and enough exposure to observe rare events, which is why claims should be read with their data.
Can learned components be safety-assured?
Partly, through testing, monitoring and architectures that constrain them with simpler verified components. Assurance of learned components remains an active research area.
Does the platform test products?
No. It develops and publishes methods. Product testing and approval are the roles of manufacturers, testing bodies and regulators.
RapportsContribuer

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Rapports is the Consortium’s quarterly publication. What you know about this subject can become evidence, a case or a correction in the next edition, credited to you and published under CC BY 4.0 where it is your own work.

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