Skip to content

GCRI · Intelligenza artificiale e sistemi autonomi

Sistemi fisici autonomi

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 sistemi fail, how their safety is assessed, and what evidence serves the regulators, operators and communities involved.

01Registrare

Autonomous physical systems on the record.

02La domanda

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.

Meccanismo

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.

Meccanismo

Operating domains set limits

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

Meccanismo

Handover to humans is hard

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

Meccanismo

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.

03Monitoraggio

Agent oversight console.

La schermata che un gruppo utilizzerebbe per seguire questo tema: misure, stati e decisioni. I nomi sono esempi e i valori sono illustrativi.

Agent oversight console

Autonomous physical systems · Agent sandbox · Session AG-7276

Human approval pendingGCRI · Intelligenza artificiale e sistemi autonomi

Tool calls

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

Politiche

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

Actions by approval class

050100count this weekAutomaticoRegistratoApprovatoDeniedEscalation effettuata
Agent oversight console: the screen’s structure, terms and states for Autonomous physical systems.Nomi di esempio e valori illustrativi; un progetto, non un registro né un sistema attivo.
04Tra i domini

Autonomous machines operate in physical domains with physical risks.

Findings are designed for the serie 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.
05Metodi ed evidenze

How autonomous physical systems is modelled, measured and tested.

Il modello, le sue ipotesi, i suoi dati e la sua incertezza, nella forma in cui uno scienziato o un ingegnere li verificherebbe. Le strutture seguono metodi pubblicati. I valori rappresentati sono illustrativi, non risultati.

Modello di sistema

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

++−+Intelligenza artificialeDatiComunitàEconomiaR di rinforzoB bilanciamento
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.
Principi guida FAIR · GO FAIR e FORCE11W3C PROV · World Wide Web ConsortiumGuidance on consistent treatment of uncertainties · IPCCCEOS Analysis Ready Data · Comitato sui satelliti per l'osservazione della Terra
06Indicatori

Cosa viene misurato e con quale accuratezza.

Ogni indicatore riporta la sua unità, la sua cadenza, il tipo di fonte su cui si basa e l'etichetta di evidenza che un valore riporterebbe. Non sono mostrati valori: un programma li fornisce sotto la propria autorità.

IndicatoreUnitàCadenzaTipo di fonteEtichetta
Crashes involving automated driving sistemicount by severitymensileMandatory crash reportingStatistiche pubblicate
Disengagements or interventionscount per distance or hourannualeOperator reports to regulatorsRIPORTATO
Distance driven autonomouslykilometresannualeOperator reportsDICHIARATO
Industrial robot injuriesconteggioannualeOccupational injury statisticsStatistiche pubblicate
Operating domain exceedancescount of events outside design domainper deploymentOperator logsOSSERVATO
Drone incidents near aircraftconteggioannualeAviation safety reportingRIPORTATO
07Fonti

Da dove provengono le evidenze.

Set di dati pubblici e registri istituzionali specifici, ciascuno con la sua classe di licenza. Le fonti soggette ad accordo sono utilizzate solo alle relative condizioni e mai ripubblicate.

FonteCosa fornisceClasse di licenza
NHTSA Standing General Order crash reportsCrashes involving automated driving and driver assistance sistemi in the USPublic domain, US government
California DMV autonomous vehicle reportsCollision and disengagement reports from permit holdersRegistri pubblici
UNECE regulations on automated driving, including UN Regulation No. 157Type approval requirements for automated lane keeping and related systemsPublic, UNECE terms
ISO 10218 e ISO/TS 15066Safety requirements for industrial and collaborative robotsLicensed standards, purchase required
Nazionale occupational injury statisticsInjuries involving machinery and robotsPublic records, licence per government
08Decisioni

Chi decide, e a cosa servono le evidenze.

Studio Intelligenza artificiale e sistemi prepares evidence. The decisions below are taken by the authorities named, under their own rules, and never by the platform.

Chi decideLa domandaEvidenze fornite da questa pagina
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

Output prodotti da questo argomento

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

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?
10Meccanismi

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.

11Metodi e dati

Assurance for systems that move.

  1. 01

    Dominio di progettazione operativa

    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 robotica e automazione 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 Ingegneria della valutazione e dell'assicurazione dell'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.

Gli organismi e i documenti alla luce dei quali si legge questa pagina. Stato ed edizioni cambiano; ogni link porta all'organismo emittente.

14Domande

Domande e risposte.

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.
RapportiContribuisci

Contribuisci con evidenze da questa pagina.

Rapporti 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.

GCRIIntelligenza artificiale e sistemi autonomiTecnologia esponenzialeEvidenze di Labs
Intelligenza artificiale e sistemi autonomi

Porta un metodo, un set di dati o una domanda.

Informazioni e richieste sono aperte oggi. Una richiesta riceve un riferimento e indica il passo successivo; candidature, pagamenti, assegnazioni di calcolo e registrazioni si aprono solo quando esistono il team, le condizioni e la capacità di revisione.