1,232 research outputs found

    UAS Pilots Code – Annotated Version 1.0

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    The UAS PILOTS CODE (UASPC) offers recommendations to advance flight safety, ground safety, airmanship, and professionalism.6 It presents a vision of excellence for UAS pilots and operators, and includes general guidance for all types of UAS. The UASPC offers broad guidance—a set of values—to help a pilot interpret and apply standards and regulations, and to confront real world challenges to avoid incidents and accidents. It is designed to help UAS pilots develop standard operating procedures (SOPs), effective risk management,7 safety management systems (SMS), and to encourage UAS pilots to consider themselves aviators and participants in the broader aviation community

    Guided Target Control System Final Design Report

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    Daimler Automotive, the parent company of Mercedes-benz requires improved methods for testing their Autonomous Emergency Braking Systems. To this end they have presented a series of four senior projects to California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. One of the Projects is to build a facsimile of a human crossing the street. The other three projects of which this is a part; are to produce an autonomous car facsimile. These projects are intended for use in testing new Autonomous Emergency Braking Systems and may serve as the basis for future senior projects

    When Software Meets the Road: Responsibility for Defective Smart Cars in the MVP Era

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    This Article reveals and analyzes the rising dominance of the Minimal Viable Product (MVP) dynamic in the car industry and its legal and policy implications, especially given the growing automation trends in the driving experience. The MVP concept refers to releasing products as soon as possible and gathering feedback from early adopters to improve the product on the fly, based on users’ inputs. Many software-related products we use today were introduced at such an unripe stage and were developed into their current versions, given business trends originating from Silicon Valley. As the use of software in cars has grown, the MVP concept has migrated into the vehicle industry. The experimental nature of software development may require a different legal approach when dealing with vehicles, given the substantial negative impact of traffic accidents. While banning unripe products from the roads seems to be a trivial reaction, different reasons deem this to be an unpractical response. The domination of AI-based technologies prevents a thorough examination of user-computer responses until they hit the road. The shortage of current legal remedies to adequately solve the challenges of the MVP concept requires an immediate rethinking of the regulatory environment to address vehicles with various forms of automation while accounting for both deontological and utilitarian challenges. The Article starts by describing the software industry’s “Agile” methods and introduces the MVP concept, while providing examples of its success and failure. Next, it demonstrates and provides examples as to how this concept migrated into the car industry. Thereafter, it turns to address the deontological challenges involved with applying the MVP method and argues that not only does the use of technologies in such an early stage require meaningful consent, but also approval of an ethics board in an Institutional Review Board (IRB)-like process. Next, the Article focuses on a utilitarian analysis, after first establishing that the current measures to limit risky vehicles on the road are insufficient. To do so it addresses reliance on recalls, ex-ante supervision, and regulation of software distribution. It points to the complexities of the driving experience which might only be properly addressed through substantial usage and thus ex post regulation. It further indicates that resolving the noted regulatory tensions by relying on stricter ex post measures premised on the law as it stands today might fail to achieve an optimal outcome. This is due to information asymmetries which might substantially hinder effective litigation by plaintiffs. The Article concludes by providing some initial proposals to mitigate these latter concerns and enable ex post measures. At the end of the day, because MVP products are likely to stay, the Article concludes that some reforms to liability doctrines might be of the essence. These should include mandating manufacturers to record and report their cars’ behavior and rethinking evidentiary burdens

    Simulation-Based Countermeasures Towards Accident Prevention : Virtual Reality Utilization in Industrial Processes and Activities

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    Despite growing industrial interests in fully immersive virtual reality (VR) applications for safety countermeasures, there is scanty research on the subject in the context of accident prevention during manufacturing processes and plant maintenance activities. This dissertation aims to explore and experiment with VR for accident prevention by targeting three workplace safety countermeasures: fire evacuation drills, hazard identification and risk assessments (HIRA), and emergency preparedness and response (EPR) procedures. Drawing on the virtual reality accident causation model (VR-ACM) (i.e., 3D modelling and simulation, accident causation, and safety drills) and the fire evacuation training model, two industrial 3D simulation models were utilized for the immersive assessment and training. These were a lithium-ion battery (LIB) manufacturing factory and a gas power plant (GPP). In total, five studies (publications) were designed to demonstrate the potential of VR in accident prevention during the manufacturing processes and maintenance activities at the facility conceptual stages. Two studies were with the LIB factory simulation to identify inherent hazards and assess risks for redesigning the factory to ensure workplace safety compliance. The other three studies constituted fire hazard identifications, emergency evacuations and hazard control/mitigations during the maintenance activity in the GPP simulation. Both study models incorporated several participants individually immersed in the virtual realm to experience the accident phenomena intuitively. These participants provided feedback for assessing the research objectives. Results of the studies indicated that several inherent hazards in the LIB factory were identified and controlled/mitigated. Secondly, the GPP experiment results suggested that although the maintenance activity in the virtual realm increased the perception of presence, a statistically significant delay was recorded at the pre-movement stage due to the lack of situational safety awareness. Overall, the study demonstrates that participants immersed in a VR plant maintenance activity and manufacturing factory process simulation environments can experience real-time emergency scenarios and conditions necessary for implementing the essential safety countermeasures to prevent accidents.Vaikka kiinnostus virtuaalitodellisuuden (VR) käyttöön turvallisuuden varotoimissa teollisuudessa on kasvanut, tutkimuksia ei ole juurikaan tehty onnettomuuksien ehkäisystä valmistus- ja kunnossapitotoiminnassa. Tämän väitöskirjan tavoitteena on tutkia ja kokeilla VR:ää tapaturmien ehkäisyssä kohdistuen kolmeen työpaikan turvallisuuden varotoimeen: paloharjoitukset, riskien arvioinnit sekä hätätilanteiden valmiusmenettelyt ja toimintasuunnitelmat (EPR). Kokemuksellisessa ja uppouttavassa koulutuksessa hyödynnettiin kahta teollisuuden 3D-simulointimallia, jotka nojautuvat virtuaalitodellisuuden onnettomuuksien aiheutumismalliin (VR-ACM) (eli 3D-mallinnus- ja simulointi, onnettomuussyy- ja turvallisuuskoulutus) sekä paloharjoitusmalliin. Nämä 3D-simulointimallit ovat litiuminoniakkuja (LIB) valmistava tehdas, joka rakennettiin Visual Components 3D-simulointiohjelmistolla (versio 4.0) ja kaasuvoimala (GPP) Unrealin reaaliaikaisella pelimoottorilla (versio 4.2). Yhteensä viisi tutkimusta (julkaisua) suunniteltiin havainnollistamaan VR:n potentiaalia tapaturmien ehkäisyssä valmistusprosessin layout-suunnittelun ja tehtaan konseptivaiheissa tehtävän kunnossapidon aikana. Kaksi tutkimusta tehtiin LIB-tehdassimulaatiolla vaarojen tunnistamiseksi sekä riskien arvioimiseksi. Tutkimukset tehtiin tehtaan uudelleensuunnittelua varten, työturvallisuuden noudattamisen varmistamiseksi. Muut kolme tutkimusta käsittelevät palovaaran tunnistamista, hätäevakuointia ja riskien vähentämistä huoltotoiminnan aikana GPP-simulaatiossa. Molemmissa tutkimusmalleissa oli useita virtuaalimaailmaan uppoutuneita osallistujia, jotka saivat kokea onnettomuudet yksilöllisesti ja intuitiivisesti. Osallistujat antoivat palautetta kokeen jälkeisessä kyselyssä. Kyselyn tuloksien avulla LIB-tehtaassa tunnistettiin ja lievennettiin useita vaaroja. GPP-kokeilun tulokset viittasivat siihen, että vaikka ylläpitotoiminta virtuaalimaailmassa lisäsi teleläsnäoloa, tilastollisesti merkittävä viive kirjattiin liikettä edeltävässä vaiheessa turvallisuustietoisuuden puuteen vuoksi. Kaiken kaikkiaan tutkimus osoittaa, että VR-laitoksen kunnossapitotoimintaan ja tuotantotehtaan prosessisimulaatioympäristöihin uppoutuvat osallistujat voivat kokea reaaliaikaisia hätäskenaarioita ja olosuhteita, jotka ovat välttämättömiä olennaisten turvallisuustoimien toteuttamiseksi.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

    Small Electric Vehicles

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    This edited open access book gives a comprehensive overview of small and lightweight electric three- and four-wheel vehicles with an international scope. The present status of small electric vehicle (SEV) technologies, the market situation and main hindering factors for market success as well as options to attain a higher market share including new mobility concepts are highlighted. An increased usage of SEVs can have different impacts which are highlighted in the book in regard to sustainable transport, congestion, electric grid and transport-related potentials. To underline the effects these vehicles can have in urban areas or rural areas, several case studies are presented covering outcomes of pilot projects and studies in Europe. A study of the operation and usage in the Global South extends the scope to a global scale. Furthermore, several concept studies and vehicle concepts on the market give a more detailed overview and show the deployment in different applications

    Achieving dynamic road traffic management by distributed risk estimation in vehicular networks

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    In this thesis I develop a model for a dynamic and fine-grained approach to traffic management based around the concept of a risk limit: an acceptable or allowable level of accident risk which vehicles must not exceed. Using a vehicular network to exchange risk data, vehicles calculate their current level of accident risk and determine their behaviour in a distributed fashion in order to meet this limit. I conduct experimental investigations to determine the effectiveness of this model, showing that it is possible to achieve gains in road system utility in terms of average vehicle speed and overall throughput whilst maintaining the accident rate. I also extend this model to include risk-aware link choice and social link choice, in which vehicles make routing decisions based on both their own utility and the utility of following vehicles. I develop a coupled risk estimation algorithm in which vehicles use not only their own risk calculations but also estimates received from neighbouring vehicles in order to arrive at a final risk value. I then analyse the performance of this algorithm in terms of its convergence rate and bandwidth usage and examine how to manage the particular characteristics of a vehicular ad-hoc network, such as its dynamic topology and high node mobility. I then implement a variable-rate beaconing scheme to provide a trade-off between risk estimate error and network resource usage
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