Waymo Safety Report: Ensuring the safety of self-driving vehicle drive tests

According to foreign media reports, Waymo recently submitted a 43-page safety report to the US Department of Transportation, detailing Waymo's advanced technology and operating procedures for autonomous vehicles to ensure the safety of self-driving vehicles. .

The report provides a summative overview of the basic functions of the vehicle, including under what conditions, under normal conditions, and under what circumstances a safe stop is performed due to a “fail” As the final measure (final fallback). In addition, this overview explains the following: Is there a data record after the accident? How is the data stored? What is the way to ensure the network security of Waymo vehicles?

Waymo also detailed its testing process from both hardware and software. For the issues of collision avoidance, overall durability of sensors and other equipment, the paper also mentions its technical principles. Waymo refines the “safety” associated with autonomous driving, which is divided into: behavioral safety (driving decisions on the road), functional safety (safe operation, including backup and redundancy), collision safety (for the car) Internal personnel's protective ability), operational safety (interaction between passenger and vehicle safety and comfort) and non-collision safety (safety of personnel interacting with the vehicle).

Most importantly, the report also explains the “operaTIonal design domain”, which is used by Waymo to define where and when the vehicle can be safely operated. It also involves various factors involved in safe driving, such as : Geographical conditions, road type, speed, time period, laws and regulations, and climatic conditions.

The Waymo security report is 43 pages long, and the small series compiles the core content (first 32 pages), as detailed below:

Waymo's mission

Waymo aims to bring autonomous driving technology to the world, providing people with convenient living while improving traffic safety. The company believes that autonomous driving technology will provide convenience for people and significantly reduce the occurrence of traffic accidents, thus saving the lives of many road users.

Self-driving vehicles increase road safety and provide millions of people with new modes of travel. The ability to fully autopilot vehicles is huge, whether it is commuting to and from work, picking up children to school or saving lives, changing people's lives and improving the quality of life.

Security is the core mission of Waymo, which is what the company set eight years ago.

Every year, 1.2 million people worldwide die from traffic accidents. In the United States, the number of traffic deaths continues to grow. All such accidents have a common point, and 94% of traffic accidents are caused by human error of the driver. Waymo firmly believes that autonomous driving technology can save thousands of people who should have lost their lives in traffic accidents every year.

The company's commitment to safety and commitment is reflected in everything the company does, from corporate culture to how to design and test the technology. In this safety report, Waymo elaborated on the working philosophy: safety.

This safety system overview highlights the important lessons and lessons learned by Waymo self-driving vehicles in the 3.5 million-mile field test and in the tens of millions of miles of automated driving simulation tests. Waymo's safety report also influenced the Automated Driving Systems 2.0 (A Vision for Safety), a self-driving federal policy framework issued by the US Department of Transportation. The US Department of Transportation's framework lists 12 safety design elements and encourages companies to conduct autonomous driving test tests and configure automated driving systems to address related technical challenges.

In this report, the company lists the processes associated with each of the safety design elements and explains how the above elements support the development, testing, and deployment of vehicle-driven vehicles. Only in the premise of ensuring safety, fully autonomous vehicles will be accepted by the public. This is why Waymo has been investing in safety technology for a long time and building related processes. It is designed to convince people that the company has launched autonomous driving. Vehicles can meet the public's need for safe transportation and comfortable travel equipment.


This report is divided into five major content modules:

First, Waymo system security plan: design to ensure safety

Second, the operating mechanism and principle of Waymo self-driving vehicle

Third, test and verification methods: to ensure the automatic driving performance and safety of the vehicle

Fourth, carry out safe (human-machine) interaction with the public

V. Conclusion

Four questions to answer for autonomous vehicles:

1. Where am I?

Before driving, the Waymo team first created detailed 3D HD maps highlighting road profiles, curbs and sidewalks, lane signs, crosswalks, stop signs and other road conditions. Waymo vehicles do not rely entirely on GPS functionality. Vehicles will cross-reference pre-drawn maps with real-time sensor data to determine where the vehicle is after comparing the two.

2. What is the situation around me?

Waymo's on-board sensors and software will continue to scan targets around the vehicle, including pedestrians, cyclists, vehicles, road construction and obstacles. The vehicle will continue to read traffic control commands from the color of the traffic light. In addition, the in-vehicle system will also identify signals for temporary parking from railroad crossing gates. Waymo's test vehicle has a scan radius of 300 meters and its detection range is equivalent to three football fields, providing full coverage.

3. What will happen next?

Waymo's software predicts future trends based on the current speed and trajectory of each dynamic target on the road, and even distinguishes between the vehicle and the rider or pedestrian. The software uses information obtained from other road users to anticipate multiple routes that may exist. The software also incorporates road changes into its considerations (such as traffic jams in lanes) and predicts how the road conditions will affect other targets around the test vehicle.

4. What should I do?

The software considers all aspects of this type of information and attempts to find a method and driving path that is suitable for the vehicle. Waymo software selects precise driving trajectories, speeds, blockages and steering controls needed to ensure road safety. Because such vehicles will continue to monitor the environment and predict the driving behavior of other road users around the vehicle, they can respond quickly to lane changes and ensure safety during lane change.

Waymo System Security Plan: Design by Safety (Safety by Design)

As the first company to achieve full autopilot on public roads, Waymo relies on his own hard work. At the beginning of the company's establishment, the company established its own System Safety Program, rooted in the technical testing and development process. The project uses a comprehensive, robust approach that Waymo calls it: design to ensure safety.

“Design is guaranteed to be safe” means Waymo considers security from the lowest system level and integrates security into system levels and development stages, ensuring security from design to testing, verification, and throughout the process. The core concept. The method also draws on best practices from the aerospace, automotive and defense industries (best pracTIce).


After following such best practices, Waymo conducted extensive testing of the various components of the self-driving vehicle to ensure that all subsystems operate safely after being integrated into the complete autonomous driving system.

This method also helps to verify the safety of fully automated vehicles when driving on the road. At the same time, Waymo can also understand how any changes or failures in system components, subsystems, or other aspects will affect the entire autonomous driving system.

The process will also affect Waymo's various safety functions, including the redundant criTIcal safety system, which allows the vehicle to park in a safe manner in the event of a technical failure. The vehicle can overlap the field of view of the sensor by means of a coordinated cooperation of sensors with complementary functions. In addition, the company has carried out a large number of testing projects to help quickly adjust and upgrade its technology to improve vehicle safety.

Waymo's System Security Program

Waymo's system security program involves five distinct security domains: behavioral security, functional security, collision security, operational security, and non-collision security. All of the above areas need to be combined with various test methods to verify the safety of fully autonomous vehicles.

Behavioral safety

Refers to the driving decisions and behavior of the vehicle on the road. Autopilot vehicles also need to comply with traffic rules and must provide navigation to users in a variety of driving situations, whether they are expected or expected, to ensure driving safety.

Waymo uses a wide range of functional analytics, simulation tools and drive tests to ensure that you fully understand the challenges that arise in the business design arena and develop security requirements with a multi-pronged testing and verification process.

Functional safety

It is designed to ensure safe operation of the Waymo vehicle in the event of a system failure or failure, which means establishing a backup system and redundant mechanisms to deal with unexpected conditions of the vehicle.

For example, all of Waymo's self-driving vehicles are equipped with a secondary computer that can be used to take over the handling of the vehicle in the event of a failure of the host computer, enabling safe parking (ie, minimal risk conditions). Each of its vehicles is equipped with an alternate steering and braking system, and the entire system has additional layers of redundancy.

Collision safety

That is, crashworthiness refers to the ability of the vehicle to protect passengers in the vehicle through various measures. The structural design is used to protect the insiders, seat restraints and airbags are provided to reduce the casualties of the insiders.

In the United States, collision safety is incorporated into the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS), which is issued by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). To this end, all major vehicles must prove that their basic models meet the relevant requirements of FMVSS.

Operational safety

Refers to the interaction between the vehicle and the passenger (human-computer interaction). When ensuring operational safety, Waymo is able to ensure a safe and comfortable experience for consumers with self-driving vehicles. The company aims to create safe, self-driving vehicles with hazard analysis, existing safety standards, extensive automated driving tests and best practices borrowed from industry. The company will also take various initiatives, such as the company's pre-test drive ride experience (more on Section 4). In addition, the company has developed a user interface that allows passengers to clearly understand their destination, direct the vehicle to park sideways, and contact Waymo for technical assistance.

Non-collision safety

For people who may interact with the vehicle, Waymo aims to provide physical protection.

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