TECHNOLOGY SELECTION PAPER

TECHNOLOGY SELECTION PAPER

Autonomous Vehicles Ground

Insert Name

2-21-2015

Introduction

The next step into the future of automotive travel is made possible by a new technology called Autonomous Vehicles (Ground). “A fully autonomous car can be defined as a car which is able to perceive its environment, decide what route to take to its destination, and drive it. The development of this could allow significant changes to travel – without the need for human supervision or operation, everyone in the car could be a passenger, or it could even drive with no occupants at all. CITATION Yeo13 l 1033 (Yeomans, 2013)” This is not to be confused with the car itself which an old technology. But when you think of autonomous vehicles think about the hardware and software combination that enable the vehicle to navigate without a human presents to stir the vehicle. Autonomous vehicles are programed to collect data. Using “An autonomous vehicle requires an array of sensors, such as laser, radar, light detection and ranging (LiDAR), GPS, and computer vision systems, to gather information CITATION ALE13 l 1033 (ALEXANDER M. WYGLINSKI, 2013).” Autonomous vehicles also comes with onboard navigation software and collision avoidance software and hardware. This big data that is collected by all the external and internal equipment and software is analyzed by computer vision systems which is super computer that is located in the autonomous vehicle. The findings in the data then tells the car how to move and react to its findings and then sends the information to a VANET. Most autonomous vehicle are also connected to a VANET which is an Vehicular ad hoc network which can be used as a failsafe back up just in case there are in technical problems and also provide the autonomous vehicles computer with real time dangers from other vehicles on the network.

Technology Overview

Features and Capabilities

The features of autonomous vehicle are primarily independent movement without a need for a human to be in the vehicle stirring. The vehicle is able to choose it’s on path to get to a location. The way it chooses its path is based off of the information that it gathers from a plethora of sensors, navigation tools that are both onboard and or satellite based. This is similar to the navigation system that is being used on the Mars Rover “Autonomous navigation is an important function for a Mars rover to fulfill missions successfully. It is a critical technique to overcome the limitations of ground tracking and control traditionally used CITATION Gua14 l 1033 (Guan, Wang, Fang, & Feng, 2014)” Also the autonomous vehicle receives information from other vehicles that are on the network with it.

People, Processes, and Environment

People -Autonomous vehicle must operate safely around people so the technology is “self-driven autonomous agent that employs the collision avoidance mechanism. CITATION Wee11 l 1033 (Wee Lit Koh, 2011)” With this collision avoidance mechanism the vehicle is able to steer clear of dangers that are on the road. This well help tell how far the nearest vehicle is from you and if that vehicle is making a left turn or stopped at the light. As a back up to the sensors that gather the data for the collision avoidance mechanism the vehicles computer may receive additional guidance from via satellite or the network.

Processes – Autonomous vehicle similar to any computer system need to have a safe and secure way to get software updates and have patches to protect them self’s from the latest Cyber-attacks that might exploits the vehicles vulnerabilities. The system should also be equipped with some type of anti-virus along with intrusion detection system and intrusion prevention system. These will protect the integrity of the vehicles computer system. And the information found by the intrusion detection system can be used to analyze the attack .Create documentation of how the attack occurred and mark the attacks behavior and place it on the network so it will help worn other vehicles on the network to what to look out for. Also all software that goes into the onboard computer should have went through software assurance / securely developed software processes. Being that this software can be responsible for loss of life. The software should go though standard software assurance and securely developed software cycle so the software can be tested CITATION Sun14 l 1033 (Naira, 2014). This is to make sure the software does not have any back doors or can be hacked into causing an availability problem for the technology.

Environment – Autonomous vehicles should be able to operate in any type of environment currently they are testing this technology in cars in the United Kingdom as well as in the United States. With this technology the vehicles could be used by the military and might need to endure extreme temperatures both hot and cold. But recently a test car had problems with the sensors in the snow “the radar sensor in the front and the rear camera are completely covered. While the snow was falling, I had to turn off the parking assist because the falling snow was triggering the ultrasonic sensors causing the system to beep continuously while there was nothing around the vehicle CITATION Dor15 l 1033 (Levin, 2015)”

Costs and Benefits

Cost – when it comes to keeping the cost down on autonomous vehicles the manufactures need to make sure they follow proper protocol when it comes to things like developing secure software. It is easier and less costly to fix a requirement in the design phase than it is to fix the software built to bad requirements once the software is operational. “Less rework means less retesting and fewer cycles, which greatly reduces the overall effort. CITATION Tho10 l 1033 (Wailgum, 2010)”

Benefits- This new technology will save most people a lot of time because with the autonomous vehicles technology the cars will be able to control the flow of traffic, there for they should never be traffic jams because the car should always make the best move to stay clear of road hazards. With this autonomous vehicles technology It also can be integrated with services at the grocery store where you’re the car drives alone and parks at the supermarket and a person loads the car with groceries and the car drives back home with the groceries. Autonomous vehicles can also be helpful to the armed services. They can use this technology on the frontlines of hostel situations the same why they use flying drones. That way if ambushed no human life is lost. They would also be excellent for recon missions because the amount of data it takes to navigate it can have extra sensors and cameras added and be recording everything that it sees and have the data analyzed in real time by Intel specialist miles away. “New technologies create new capabilities and strategic opportunities. CITATION Nic13 l 1033 (Nicholas Grossman, 2013)”

Risks and Vulnerabilities

Risks – That come along with the benefit of having a vehicle that can travel without a human steering it are things like the risk of loss of life, property damage, lost and misdirected cargo, possible full loss of the vehicle itself.

Vulnerabilities – Currently since the technology is so new with the autonomous vehicles there are still a lot of vulnerabilities that can be exploited because the main focus right now is to make sure the autonomous vehicles is working then come back and fix any security issues that the autonomous vehicles might encounter.

Ways that autonomous vehicles can improve itself from a cyber-security stand point are Prevention and that would be to use software assurance and certifying software correctness to make sure the autonomous vehicles software is secure when it is developed and not easily hacked. For detection the manufactures should add anti-virus software and anti-malware protection to the onboard computer. For remediation the manufactures need to make sure the autonomous vehicles have a secure way of getting the updates and patches that are required to make sure the vehicles is safe from the latest cyber-attacks. To make sure that the vehicles integrity has not been tampered with the vehicle should use both the onboard navigation system and the satellite navigations system to make sure they both come back with the same route as a multiple factor check. Also manufactures can use heat to combatant the physical security problems the vehicles are currently having with the snow on the sensors not allowing some of the autonomous features to be available.

Technology Evaluation Study Recommendation

In conclusion autonomous vehicles are a great addition to the future. This new technology can shape the future of the automotive marketplace. The technology can be responsible for save millions of lives per year. Vehicles that are equipped with this new technology can stop military personal from getting killed by surveying and collection Intel from hostel areas. Driverless cars with create an opportunity for new jobs. With the right people working on the security of these cars I feel like they can help the world as a whole.

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY ALEXANDER M. WYGLINSKI, X. H. (2013, Feb). Security of Autonomous Systems Employing Embedded Computing and Sensors. Retrieved from PROLEGOMENA: http://www.computer.org.ezproxy.umuc.edu/csdl/mags/mi/2013/01/mmi2013010080.pdf

Guan, X., Wang, X., Fang, J., & Feng, S. (2014). An innovative high accuracy autonomous navigation method for the Mars rovers. Acta Astronautica, 266-275.

Levin, D. (2015, feb 2). The cold, hard truth about autonomous vehicles and weather. Retrieved from http://fortune.com: http://fortune.com/2015/02/02/autonomous-driving-bad-weather/

Naira, S. (2014). An extended systematic literature review on provision of evidence for safety certification. Information and Software Technology, PP 689-717.

Nicholas Grossman. (2013). Robotics and the future of asymmetric warfare. Retrieved from Proquest: http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.umuc.edu/pqdtft/docview/1506155122/6D6AB3A1C82E46B7PQ/4?accountid=14580

Wailgum, T. (2010, Aug). 7 Sensible Steps to Improve Software Quality. Retrieved from http://www.cio.com: http://www.cio.com/article/2415991/enterprise-software/7-sensible-steps-to-improve-software-quality.html

Wee Lit Koh, S. Z. (2011). An Extensible Collision Avoidance Model for Realistic Self-Driven Autonomous Agents. Real Time Applications, IEEE/ACM International Symposium, pp: 7-14.

Yeomans, G. (2013). Optimal routing strategies for autonomous underwater vehicles in time-varying environment. Robotics and Autonomous Systems. Retrieved from https://www.lloyds.com/~/media/lloyds/reports/emerging%20risk%20reports/autonomous%20vehicles%20final.pdf