Auto, Tech Industries Urge Congress To Pass Self-Driving Legislation (axios.com)

John Bozzella, president and CEO of Global Automakers (a trade association and lobby group of automobile manufacturers), said at an Axios event Thursday that it's "critically important" that Congress pass federal legislation on autonomous vehicles. A year ago, the House approved the Self Drive Act, but it has yet to be passed by the Senate. Axios adds: This delay is set against a growing fear in Washington, Silicon Valley and the auto industry that the U.S. will fall dangerously behind in autonomous vehicle standards and policies while China and Europe leap ahead. "My fear is we fall behind with the rest of the world," said, Congressman Robert Latta (R-Ohio), chairman of the Digital Commerce and Consumer Protection subcommittee. As breakthroughs are happening on the mechanical, computer and engineering levels with regard to autonomous vehicles, "time is running out" on moving policy forward, he added.

Comments

Re:FAA software development standards!

[ThosLives]

26262 is only functional safety though - it only covers "if some electronic part breaks, can the vehicle be made safe," and "have best processes to eliminate systematic errors been followed?"

Full autonomous driving has all those pitfalls of random hardware failure and systematic design errors, plus it has SOTIF - Safety of the Intended Function - concerns. Basically, are things safe (enough)when parts are not broken and if you had zero software bugs?

SOTIF is really hard, and we don't have time-test processes for it. Consider this: 26262 is based on around 50 years of aerospace and other industrial automation experience. We don't have that for SOTIF.

And yes, those that say ADAS level 5 is harder than aviation autopilot are correct: autopilot is essentially route following and very limited decision making in a highly controlled environment (autoland, for instance, is in a controlled airport with ILS...) it is not decision making and situational awareness in an uncontrolled environment which ADAS level 5 implies.