This document discusses safety considerations for next-generation autonomous vehicles and how RTI's data distribution service (DDS) middleware can help address them. DDS ensures reliable data availability in real-time across complex systems, facilitates integration of diverse components, and enables flexible deployment. Its use of a common data model simplifies safety certification processes.

1. Safety for Next-Gen Automotive

2. The smart machine era will be the most disruptive in the history of IT
-- Gartner 2015

3. The IIoT Disruption
The real value is a common architecture that
connects sensor to cloud, interoperates
between vendors, and spans industries
Common technology that spans
industries brings bold new approaches
and enables fast change

4. A New Freedom: Cars -> Robot on Wheels
• Faster, safer, cheaper, farther, easier
• DoT: Prevent >32,000 deaths /yr.
• 30% of all US jobs will end or change
– Trucking, delivery, traffic control, urban
transport, child & elder care, roadside
hotels, restaurants, insurance, auto
body, law, real estate, leisure
• 50% of OEM brands may fail

5. RTI’s Experience
• ~1000 Projects
– Healthcare
– Transportation
– Communications
– Energy
– Industrial
– Defense
• 15+ Standards & Consortia Efforts
– Interoperability
– Multi-vendor ecosystems

6. RTI’s Deep Expertise in Autonomy
• Founders from Stanford
Aerospace Robotics Lab
• RTI middleware powers
unmanned systems on land,
sea, air, and space
• RTI led the US UAS ground
station architecture
• RTI-based system will soon
allow drones in class-A
National Air Space
• RTI Connext DDS was
developed for advanced
reactive vehicles

7. Enable UAS Flight in National Air Space
• The Ground Based Sense and
Avoid system allows
autonomous planes in US
National Air Space
– Repositioning
– Training & testing
– Disaster relief
– Forest monitoring and fire
suppression
• DO178C safety certified
• Operational with RTI Connext
DDS in 2016 Management: US Army UAS Project Office
System integrator: SRC, Inc.

8. ©2015 Real-Time Innovations, Inc. Status Feb 2016

9. ©2015 Real-Time Innovations, Inc. Status Feb 2016

10. Integrate Intelligence
• ADAS (level 2)
– The VW Driver Assistance and
Integrated Safety system
combines radars, proximity
sensors, and video to assist safe
operation
– It helps avoid obstacles, detect
lane departures, track eye
activity, and safely negotiate
bends
• Autonomy (level 4)
– The V-Charge program demoed
an auto-charging and parking
vehicle in 2014
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xQfKTAtyNU

11. DDS Data-Centric
Middleware

12. DDS is Different!
Data-Centric
DDS
Shared Data Model
DataBus
Point-to-Point
TCP
Sockets
Client/Server
MQTT
XMPP
OPC
CORBA
Brokered
ESB
Daemon
Publish/Subscribe
Fieldbus
CANbus
ZeroMQ
JMS
Queuing
AMQP
Active MQ

13. The Importance of Data Centricity
Data centricity enables interoperation, scale, & integration
Unstructured files
Database
Data Centricity Data at Rest
Messaging middleware
DataBus
Data Centricity Data in Motion

14. Cloud Services
DDS Integrates All Components
Sensing
Planning
Radar, LIDAR Vehicle Platform Navigation
Error
Management
Visualization
Situation Analysis
Situation Awareness
Vision Fusion
Cameras, LIDAR,
Radar
…
Data Fusion
LoggingVehicle Control
Localization
DDS Bus
Traffic Maps
DDS Bus

15. Why Choose DDS?
• Reliability: Severe consequences if offline for 5 minutes?
• Performance/scale:
– Measure in ms or µs?
– Or scale > 20+ applications or 10+ teams?
– Or 10k+ data values?
• Architecture: System lifecycle >3 yrs?
2 or 3 Checks?

16. How Does RTI Help Autonomy Development?
• Ensure reliable data availability
• Guarantee real-time response
• Manage complex data flow and state
• Ease system integration
• Build security in from the start
• Make deployment flexible
• Ease safety certification

17. Ensure Reliable Data Availability
• What: Continuous availability >> 99.999%
• How: Easy redundancy, no servers

18. Guarantee Real-Time Response
• What: response < 100us, even with load, complex data types, many flows
• How: peer-to-peer, multicast, data path optimization

19. QoS Control
• Handles any link
– From data and video switches to low-
bandwidth, lossy space communications
• Implements tunable reliability
– Balance throughput and latency
• Enforces timing
– Priority, deadlines, nanosecond timestamps

20. Build Security In from the Start
• Dataflow-Level Security
– Control r,w access to each data item for
each function
– Ensures proper dataflow operation
• Complete Protection
– Discovery authentication
– Data-centric access control
– Cryptography
– Tagging & logging
– Non-repudiation
– Secure multicast
• No code changes!
• Plugin architecture for advanced uses
CBM AnalysisPMU Control Operator
State Alarms SetPoint
Topic Security model:
• PMU: State(w)
• CBM: State(r); Alarms(w)
• Control: State(r), SetPoint(w)
• Operator: *(r), Setpoint(w)

21. Ease Safety Certification
• Safety certifiable connectivity platform
– Stringent SWaP requirements
– Complete certification evidence
– Full interoperability with DDS implementations
• DO-178C Level A
– Flight management systems
• ISO 26262
– Road vehicle functional safety
• IEC 60601 class 3
– Medical devices
Available
Soon
Soon

22. Certified Middleware Greatly Eases Safety Cert
• Provides non-stop availability
– Decentralized architecture
– No single point of failure
– Support for redundant networks
– Automatic failover between redundant publishers
– Dynamic upgrades
• No central server or services
• Version-independent interoperability protocol
• Supports subsystem isolation and incremental certification
• Controls real-time Quality of Service
• Makes missed deadlines and presence visible
• Proven in thousands of mission critical systems
22

23. Connext DDS Cert
• Limits size of distributed system
– Suits most onboard systems
– Reduces ELOC
• Predictable
– No dynamic memory allocation
– Applications preconfigured
– Integrates with Full Connext DDS non-
certified components
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24. Summary
• An autonomous car is a robot on wheels
• The system needs reliable, flexible, real-time,
secure connectivity
• DDS supports development, deployment
evolution
– Location transparency
– Integration with existing protocols
– Test and debug
• Proven, standard middleware eases
debugging, development and deployment
• Separation middleware makes certification
easier and cheaper