Student Design Projects to suport safety of highly autonomous machinery

PI: Joseph Dvorak, UK

Abstract

The goal of this project is to enable engineering students in BAE 305 (DC Circuits and Microelectronics) to develop safety systems for highly automated mobile machinery as their semester design project. ISO 18497 provides direction on the safety of highly automated agricultural machine operations. One part of the standard lays out the required sensing/perception systems for safe operation of these highly automated machines. The standard also lays out a test to verify that the sensor appropriately detects humans with a 99.9966% success rate using a test obstacle. The standard also includes requirements for how the vehicle/machine responds to a positive detection.
As their semester design project, students will work in groups of 3 to 4 to create the perception system for a highly automated vehicle. This perception system will combine the sensor and the data processing necessary to make a detection signal that the system would use to start a safety response. One outcome will be the development of several different options for safety systems. However, students will also be encouraged to test the appropriateness of the standard itself. This can be demonstrated by creating a system that works on the test obstacle but not on an actual human or vice-versa.