Safety and Reliability of Autonomous Vehicles

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) are complex systems that use artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to integrate mechanical, electronic, and computing technologies to make real-time driving decisions. AI enables AVs to navigate through complex environments while maintaining a safety envelope that is continuously measured and quantified by onboard sensors (e.g., camera, LiDAR, RADAR). Clearly, the safety and resilience of AVs is of a significant concern, as exemplified by several headline-making AV crashes (e.g. Uber, Tesla Crash) as well as prior work on characterization of AV resilience during road tests. Our group specializes in addressing this research gap via comprehensive assessment of AV technology by doing field measurements [DSN 2018], and targeted fault injection [DSN 2018 FA, ITC 2018].