Planning a Safer Path

Mathematically Verified and Validated in Simulation, NVIDIA Safety Force Field Protects Against Real-World Traffic

Real world traffic is unpredictable. To be truly safe, vehicles need to be able to monitor their surroundings and shield occupants from potential hazards and collisions. The NVIDIA Safety Force Field (SFF) delivers that added layer of safety. It’s a powerful computational framework that keeps vehicles out of harm’s way and ensures they won’t contribute to or cause an unsafe situation.

 

NVIDIA Safety Force Field Protects Vehicles in Everyday Traffic

  • Safe
  • Verified
  • Open

Driving Peace of Mind

SFF is a robust driving policy that analyzes and predicts the vehicle’s environment. It determines a set of acceptable actions to protect the vehicle, as well as others on the road. These actions won’t create, escalate, or contribute to an unsafe situation, and include the measures necessary to mitigate harmful scenarios. The high performance computing power of the NVIDIA DRIVE platform supports frame-by-frame, physics-based SFF computations using vehicle sensor data.

Mathematically Verified and Validated in Simulation

SFF performance is mathematically verified. The policy has also undergone robust validation using real world data and bit-accurate simulation. If all vehicles on the roads complied with the framework, no unsafe situations or collisions would occur. SFF achieves this performance while allowing for normal everyday driving, and is not overly defensive. When a vehicle that has not implemented SFF causes a collision, it is possible to perform data-driven computation of responsibility.

Open and Transparent

SFF follows from one core principle of collision avoidance, as opposed to a large set of rules and exceptions. It seamlessly handles highway driving, complex urban situations, and low-visibility conditions. The policy jointly considers braking (longitudinal) and steering (lateral) constraints, enabling a wide range of possible actions. Customers can combine SFF with their own driving software, using it as a safety shield layer in their motion planning software that monitors and prevents unacceptable actions.

To learn more, read the NVIDIA Safety Force Field whitepaper.