Autonomous Vehicle Event Ledger for Smart Contract Enforcement
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current systems lack a trusted mechanism to automatically enforce liability arrangements associated with autonomous vehicles, as there is no efficient way to regulate and enforce smart contracts governing their operations, leading to uncertainties in liability distribution between operators, insurers, and manufacturers.
Innovation Solution
A distributed ledger system is implemented to record and enforce smart contracts related to autonomous vehicles, using sensors to monitor conditions and generate transactions that are compiled into blocks, ensuring transparent and objective enforcement of liability arrangements through cryptographic linking and consensus mechanisms.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a distributed ledger system is implemented to automatically enforce smart contracts, then reliability and transparency of liability enforcement is improved, but device complexity and system infrastructure requirements worsen
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a distributed ledger system as an intermediary layer between autonomous vehicle sensors and liability enforcement mechanisms. This mediator automatically processes sensor data, generates transactions, and enforces smart contracts without requiring direct complex integration between vehicle systems and liability determination systems, thereby improving reliability while managing complexity through abstraction
Solution Approach 2:
The system enables autonomous vehicles to self-report their operational status and liability-relevant events through automated sensor monitoring and transaction generation. The distributed ledger automatically validates and records these transactions, and smart contracts autonomously enforce liability arrangements, reducing the need for manual intervention and external coordination infrastructure
2Measurement precision
If sensor monitoring and transaction generation are automated for every condition change, then measurement precision and automation extent are improved, but data processing load and energy consumption worsen
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements selective monitoring where sensors continuously monitor all conditions, but transactions are only generated when specific liability-relevant events occur or when condition changes exceed predefined thresholds. This partial action approach maintains measurement precision for all parameters while reducing the frequency of transaction generation and associated energy consumption
Solution Approach 2:
The patent extracts only the essential liability-relevant data from the comprehensive sensor dataset and transmits only these critical transactions to the distributed ledger. Non-essential or redundant data is filtered out locally, reducing the volume of data processed and transmitted while maintaining precision for enforcement-critical measurements
3Loss of information
If a distributed ledger is used to record all transactions, then information transparency and immutability are improved, but information storage requirements and processing time worsen
Solution Approach 1:
The distributed ledger system segments transactions into distinct blocks that are processed and validated independently. Each block contains a subset of transactions, allowing parallel processing and validation across the network. This segmentation maintains complete and immutable recording of all transactions while reducing the time required to process and validate individual transaction batches
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.