Autonomous Vehicle Ledger for Control-Shift Liability Tracking
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current systems lack a trusted mechanism to automatically enforce liability arrangements associated with autonomous vehicles, as they shift between manual and autonomous control, leading to unclear liability shifts and a lack of transparent and objective regulation.
Innovation Solution
A distributed ledger system is employed to record and enforce smart contracts related to autonomous vehicle operations, using sensors to monitor conditions and generate transactions that are compiled into blocks, ensuring transparent and objective enforcement of liability arrangements between various parties involved.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a distributed ledger system is implemented to automatically enforce smart contracts, then transparency and objectivity of liability enforcement is improved, but system complexity and implementation difficulty increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments the complex distributed ledger functionality into modular smart contracts that can be independently deployed and executed. Each smart contract handles specific liability scenarios (e.g., collision liability, operational liability), allowing the system to be implemented incrementally and reducing overall system complexity while maintaining transparency and reliability.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces smart contracts as intermediary components that mediate between the distributed ledger and the actual liability enforcement processes. These smart contracts automatically execute predefined rules and logic, reducing the need for complex centralized enforcement mechanisms while improving transparency and objectivity in liability determination.
2Measurement precision
If sensor monitoring and transaction generation are implemented for every autonomous vehicle, then accuracy of liability determination is improved, but data processing load and energy consumption increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements selective monitoring where sensors continuously monitor all vehicle conditions, but transactions are only generated and transmitted to the distributed ledger when specific events occur that affect liability (e.g., collisions, system failures, control mode changes). This partial action approach maintains high measurement precision for liability determination while significantly reducing data processing load and energy consumption compared to transmitting all sensor data.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent extracts only the relevant liability-determining data from the vast amount of sensor information generated by autonomous vehicles. Smart contracts are configured to trigger transactions based on specific conditions (e.g., control mode transitions, collision detection, system anomalies), filtering out unnecessary data and reducing the energy required for data processing and transmission while maintaining accurate liability records.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods and systems for maintaining a distributed ledger and/or blockchain of transactions and/or events pertaining to autonomous vehicles and/or smart contracts are provided. One or more processors may monitor one or more sensors associated with an autonomous vehicle. Based upon the outputs of the sensors, a change in condition of the autonomous vehicle may be detected. The condition may relate to operation, or an operational state of the vehicle and/or a condition associated with a smart contract. The processors may generate a transaction describing the detected change in the condition of the vehicle. The transaction may be transmitted to an enforcement server. As a result, an up-to-date ledger of autonomous vehicle and/or smart contract transactions and/or events may be maintained.