The governance gap in autonomous vehicle safety is a highly contentious subject. Current technology that tries to address the governance gap have largely been software based design safety. Standards govern the software logic on the premise that software doesn’t break, preventing logic errors and ensuring that autonomous systems can handle the chaos of the real world.
The issue with software only design safety still comes with significant risk involved for both users of AVs and pedestrians. Current software standards help manage known risks but they cannot mathematically guarantee safety against the “long tail” of rare edge cases. Another critical issue is the black box of machine learning – If an AI decides to swerve, it’s often impossible to trace that decision to a specific line of code. Current standards struggle to validate probabilistic software that doesn’t behave the same way every time. Also current software cannot fully bridge the simulation to reality gap. Driving billions of miles is impractical so models are trained on simulations. No simulator perfectly replicates the physics of tire friction on a wet road or the precise sensor noise caused by heavy fog.
KeryZK’s answer to the governance gap is the Sovereign Spine, a physical fuse to an AV’s circuits. The solution is to look at the hardware instead of software. It is an air-gapped deterministic hardware interrupt to the Safe Torque Off (STO) circuit, killing the power to the AV if the AI makes a move that violates the laws of physics. It uses a 60 GHZ FMCW Radar with Skeletal Signature Algorithm(SSA) and is powered by an STM32-level inference running on a dedicated RTOS. Unlike traditional radar that identifies objects as blobs, the SSA focuses on physics and identifies biological vitality such as gait, respiration and skeletal movement.
KeryZK’s device complies with the current ISO 4448 standard. ISO 4448 governs the deployment, orchestration, and behavioral management of public area Mobile Robots. The core purpose of ISO 4448 integration is to enable safe, organized, and scalable operation of autonomous delivery bots, service robots, and other automated devices on public walkways (footways) and at the kerbside alongside human pedestrians and active transportation users. Rather than just device safety, ISO 4448 focuses on the safety and comfort of bystanders.
KeryZK plans to target the industrial and urban mobility sectors, hoping that its technology would solve unplanned interruptions and increase operational safety. It’s technology provides the certification layer for urban mobility AVs. KeryZK would enable OEMs to ship AVs by providing the hardware “regulator” that regulators demand.
The Sovereign Spine is currently in its lab phase and developers are fine tuning the Skeletal Signature Algorithm. KeryZK is currently raising funds to move on to the simulation phase where the technology will be tested in virtual settings, allowing developers to formalize their Confusion Matrix for ISO compliance.
The Sovereign Spine is an ingenious invention that promises to advance AV technology and the overall safety of everyone. It is a significant milestone in the development of AVs, by focusing on divergent solutions that challenges the norm in an industry that has traditionally been focusing on software only design safety.
Check out KeryZK’s website over here.
Or get in touch with their founder.