Autonomous Vehicle Event Blockchain for Smart Liability Enforcement
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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 uncertainties in liability distribution among operators, insurers, and manufacturers.
Innovation Solution
A distributed ledger system is implemented to record and enforce smart contracts related to autonomous vehicle operations, using sensors and processors to detect events, compile logs, and update a blockchain, ensuring transparent and objective enforcement of liability arrangements.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a distributed ledger system is implemented to automatically enforce smart contracts, then liability enforcement reliability is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments the autonomous vehicle ecosystem into multiple independent nodes (vehicles, insurers, manufacturers, regulators) that each maintain their own copy of the blockchain ledger. This segmentation allows automatic enforcement of smart contracts without requiring a centralized authority, thereby improving reliability while distributing system complexity across multiple independent components rather than concentrating it in a single complex system.
Solution Approach 2:
The smart contracts on the blockchain enable automatic self-enforcement of liability arrangements without human intervention. When predefined conditions are met (e.g., accident detection via sensors), the smart contracts automatically execute appropriate actions (e.g., liability assignment, insurance claims), improving reliability through consistent automated enforcement while reducing the operational complexity of manual liability determination processes.
2Measurement precision
If sensor data and event logs are continuously recorded on the blockchain, then measurement precision and transparency are improved, but data storage requirements and system complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system extracts only the most critical event data and sensor information relevant to liability determination and stores it on the blockchain. Non-critical or redundant data is excluded from blockchain storage, maintaining measurement precision for essential events while reducing the overall quantity of stored data. This selective extraction approach balances transparency requirements with storage efficiency.
3Reliability
If consensus mechanisms are implemented across distributed nodes, then system reliability and trust are improved, but processing time and productivity are reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements a partial consensus mechanism where not all nodes must agree on all transactions. Instead, a threshold level of consensus (e.g., majority of validator nodes) is sufficient to confirm and record events on the blockchain. This approach maintains system reliability and trust through distributed verification while significantly improving processing speed by avoiding the need for complete universal agreement on every transaction.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods and systems for maintaining and building an autonomous vehicle-related event blockchain are provided. One or more processors may receive indications of autonomous vehicle events. The autonomous vehicle events may include information relating to technology usage and/or operational events. The autonomous vehicle events may be compiled into a log of recorded autonomous vehicle events. Based upon the autonomous vehicle events, an action to implement may be determined. Additionally, the log may be distributed to a public or private network of distributed nodes to form a consensus on an update to the log of record autonomous vehicle events. As a result, the distributed nodes may maintain an up-to-date record of the shared ledger of autonomous vehicle events.