Hardware and Software for AVs
On top of the Next Gen OS will be another OS: the hardware & software that makes our autonomous car go. It’s fiendishly complicated and it needs to run at a speed of computing that was unimaginable 5 years ago.
Our Next Gen OS is designed to fully support the layer of computation that we call the AV OS.
There many parts of this OS. Some of the highlights:
Fail Operate
A car that is driven by computers needs to have a backup system so that if the main computer fails, for any reason, there is a second computer ready to step in. Such backups have to be engineered so that in any kind of crash or failure, the car will continue driving safely.
The pilots in our team have worked this environment for 30 years. Many jets have “Autoland” – a computer system that can land an airplane all by itself. It has been used hundreds of times per day for 30 years and there has never been a failure. We will incorporate a variant of this system in our cars.
MEL (Minimum Equipment List)
A foundational process is to constantly test what is working and what isn’t.
- If the car is about to do a maneuver or drive at a certain speed, it must check with the MEL and check that everything they need to do safely is ready and working.
- If not, the car will down-grade or change its maneuver to the point where it does have everything it needs to do the revised maneuver safely.
The benefit is that our cars will keep going – safely. If at any point this isn’t possible, it pulls over or drives to a safe place and stops. However, it never gives up until it runs out of safe options.
Right-Sized Computing & Engineering
We are also mindful that the technology in an AV is expensive. We will ‘right size’ all of our sensors and computers so that we don’t over spend, given the goals of the car.
An MPP computer from NVDIA: typical of what the computers in our AV’s will look like:
- 8 Teraflops 64-bit
- 250 Watts
- Liquid cooled
In two years, the performance will be X4 times this computer.
