2026-09-20T20:25:43Zhttps://dspace.mit.edu/server/oai/requestoai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/1298422026-06-06T00:55:52Zcom_1721.1_7582com_1721.1_7581col_1721.1_131023
Daniel N. Jackson.
Leong Feng Ping, Angela.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
2021-02-19T20:13:39Z
2021-02-19T20:13:39Z
2020
2020
https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/129842
1237530447
Thesis: M. Eng., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, February, 2020
Cataloged from student-submitted PDF of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 77-78).
Self-driving cars have tremendous potential to be safer than human drivers, but are complex systems for which evaluating safety is challenging: using a statistical approach requires self-driving cars to have clocked on the order of billions of miles of driving to present convincing evidence. Thus there is potential in exploring a new design architecture for self-driving cars in which a small, trusted module of code cooperates with the main controller to ensure safety while being easily verifiable; we call this the safety Interlock. This thesis focuses on the scenario of an ego car driving in a single, straight lane behind a lead car that may suddenly brake. We first propose and prove, using formal verification, an algorithm for Interlock to prevent collision by maintaining a safe separation distance that allows the ego car to stop in time. We then present a simulation program developed using the Processing programming language, which provides visual confirmation of the efficacy of the Interlock algorithm, and is designed to be extensible to more complex road scenarios.
by Angela Leong Feng Ping.
M.Eng.
M.Eng. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
78 pages
eng
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
MIT theses may be protected by copyright. Please reuse MIT thesis content according to the MIT Libraries Permissions Policy, which is available through the URL provided.
http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
Developing a simulator to aid in the design of a safety interlock for self-driving cars
Thesis
application/pdf
2021-02-19T20:13:09Z
Publication
Master
EECS
unknown
unknown
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<Abstract>Self-driving cars have tremendous potential to be safer than human drivers, but are complex systems for which evaluating safety is challenging: using a statistical approach requires self-driving cars to have clocked on the order of billions of miles of driving to present convincing evidence. Thus there is potential in exploring a new design architecture for self-driving cars in which a small, trusted module of code cooperates with the main controller to ensure safety while being easily verifiable; we call this the safety Interlock. This thesis focuses on the scenario of an ego car driving in a single, straight lane behind a lead car that may suddenly brake. We first propose and prove, using formal verification, an algorithm for Interlock to prevent collision by maintaining a safe separation distance that allows the ego car to stop in time. We then present a simulation program developed using the Processing programming language, which provides visual confirmation of the efficacy of the Interlock algorithm, and is designed to be extensible to more complex road scenarios.</Abstract>
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