Skip to content

GCRI · Zîrekiya çêkirî û pergalên xweser

Pergalên fîzîkî yên xweber

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

01Qeyd

Autonomous physical systems on the record.

02The 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.

Mekanîzma

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.

Mekanîzma

Operating domains set limits

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

Mekanîzma

Handover to humans is hard

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

Mekanîzma

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.

03Çavdêrî bike

Agent oversight console.

The screen a team would use to follow this subject: its measures, states and decisions. Names are examples and values are illustrative.

Agent oversight console

Autonomous physical systems · Agent sandbox · Session AG-7276

Human approval pendingGCRI · Zîrekiya çêkirî û pergalên xweser

Tool calls

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

Siyaset

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

Actions by approval class

050100count this weekOtomatîkLoggedPejirandîDeniedEscalated
Agent oversight console: the screen’s structure, terms and states for Autonomous physical systems.Nav û nirxên nimûneyî; sêwiran e, ne qeyd an pergaleke zindî ye.
04Li seranserê qadan

Autonomous machines operate in physical domains with physical risks.

Findings are designed for the rêzeya 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.
05Rêbaz û delîl

How autonomous physical systems is modelled, measured and tested.

Model, texmînên wî, daneyên wî û nediyariya wî, bi şeweyê ku zanyar an endezyar kontrol bike. Avahî rêbazên weşandî dişopînin. Nirxên hatine xêzkirin nimûneyî ne, ne encam in.

Modela pergalê

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

++−+Zîrekiya çêkirîDaneCivakAborîR xurtkerB hevseng
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.
Prensîbên rêber ên FAIR · GO FAIR û FORCE11W3C PROV · World Wide Web ConsortiumRêwerzên ji bo birêvebirina hevgirtî ya nediyarîyan · IPCCCEOS Analysis Ready Data · Committee on Earth Observation Satellites
06Nîşander

What is measured, and how well.

Each indicator carries its unit, its cadence, the kind of source behind it and the evidence label a value would carry. No values are shown: a programme supplies them under its own authority.

IndicatorUnitCadenceSource typeNîşan
Crashes involving automated driving pergalancount by severitymonthlyMandatory crash reportingStatîstîkên weşandî
Disengagements or interventionscount per distance or hourannualOperator reports to regulatorsREPORTED
Distance driven autonomouslykilometresannualOperator reportsDECLARED
Industrial robot injuriescountannualOccupational injury statisticsStatîstîkên weşandî
Operating domain exceedancescount of events outside design domainper deploymentOperator logsÇAVDÊRÎKIRÎ
Drone incidents near aircraftcountannualAviation safety reportingREPORTED
07Çavkanî

Where the evidence comes from.

Named public datasets and institutional records, each with its licence class. Sources by agreement are used only under their terms and never republished.

ÇavkanîWhat it givesLicence class
NHTSA Standing General Order crash reportsCrashes involving automated driving and driver assistance pergalan in the USPublic domain, US government
California DMV autonomous vehicle reportsCollision and disengagement reports from permit holdersPublic records
UNECE regulations on automated driving, including UN Regulation No. 157Type approval requirements for automated lane keeping and related systemsPublic, UNECE terms
ISO 10218 û ISO/TS 15066Safety requirements for industrial and collaborative robotsLicensed standards, purchase required
Neteweyî occupational injury statisticsInjuries involving machinery and robotsPublic records, licence per government
08Biryar

Who decides, and what the evidence serves.

Zîrekiya çêkirî û Pergal prepares evidence. The decisions below are taken by the authorities named, under their own rules, and never by the platform.

Kî biryarê dideThe questionEvidence this page serves
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

Outputs this topic produces

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

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?
10Mechanisms

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.

11Methods and data

Assurance for systems that move.

  1. 01

    Operational design domain

    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 robotîk û otomasyon 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 Endezyariya nirxandin û teminata zîrekiya çêkirî. 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.

Sazî û belgeyên ku ev rûpel li hember wan tê xwendin. Rewş û çap diguherin; her girêdan diçe ba saziya derxistinê.

14Pirs

Pirs û bersiv.

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.
rêzeya Pergalên StratejîkTevkarî bike

Ji vê rûpelê delîl bidin.

rêzeya Pergalên Stratejîk 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.

GCRIZîrekiya çêkirî û pergalên xweserTeknolojiya eksponensiyelDelîlên Labs
Zîrekiya çêkirî û pergalên xweser

Rêbazek, danehevek an pirsek bîne.

Agahî û pirs îro vekirî ne. Pirsek referansekê distîne û gava piştî wê dide nasîn; serlêdan, drav, veqetandina hesabkirinê û tomarkirin tenê dema ku tîm, mercên wê û kapasîteya vekolînê hebin vedibin.