High-Resolution Safety Verification for Evasive Obstacle Avoidance in Autonomous Vehicles

This paper presents a comprehensive hazard analysis, risk assessment, and loss evaluation for an Evasive Minimum Risk Maneuvering (EMRM) system designed for autonomous vehicles. The EMRM system is designed to improve collision avoidance and mitigate loss severity by drawing inspiration from professional drivers who perform aggressive maneuvers while maintaining stability for effective risk mitigation. Recent advances in autonomous vehicle technology demonstrate a growing capability for high-performance maneuvers. This paper discusses a comprehensive safety verification process and establishes a clear safety goal to enhance the validation of the testing. The study systematically identifies potential hazards and assesses their risks to overall safety and the protection of vulnerable road users. A novel loss evaluation approach is introduced that focuses on the impact of mitigation maneuvers on loss severity. In addition, the proposed mitigation integrity level can be used to verify the minimum-risk maneuver feature. This paper applies a verification method to evasive maneuvering, contributing to the development of more reliable active safety features in autonomous driving systems.