Minimalistic, secure, and efficient real-time systems for autonomous vehicles

Purpose and goal

Our goal was to turn our recent research results from designing and operating microservice-based safety-critical systems into a portable prototype system on TRL-5 to monitor advanced driver assistance systems and autonomous driving. The purpose for this project was to conclude our internal pre-development activities on software and system level at TRL-4/TRL-5. We successfully demonstrated our solution (prototypes in test vehicles) showing that we are ready to reach out for external partners in pilot projects to aim at TRL-6.

Expected results and effects

We demonstrated a solution that is able (a) to analyze real-time data streams from sensors like cameras onboard of a vehicle and (b) to remotely monitor the system’s performance to gain further insights. In our vision, this will be a key-enabling ingredient for OEMs and Tier-1 suppliers in the near future to roll out robust AD functionality. On top of that, we were selected as start-up for MobilityXlab for fall 2019, which will help us to meet our next goal of running pilot projects at TRL-6.

Planned approach and implementation

During the implementation, we strictly followed recent findings from research in software and system engineering as well as recommendations from Google’s DevOps Research and Assessment (https://ogy.de/dora). Adhering to these findings helped us to (a) reduce the risk of unexpected system behavior, (b) shrink the system’s attack surface for hackers, and (c) increase speed for realizing the solution. We successfully met our expectations and are now ready for the next steps towards TRL-6.