Autonomous vehicles are poised to revolutionise transportation, from self-driving cars and agricultural robots to drones and autonomous underwater vessels. While these systems offer unprecedented efficiency and functionality, safety assurance is critical.
One risk that has not yet been considered is the that of space weather. The Starion-led Space Weather Autonomous Vehicle Effects (SWAVE) project, now at its midpoint, is helping the European Space Agency (ESA) understand the risk that space weather may pose to this emerging industry, and the support that could be offered to mitigate the risks. Dr Matt Allcock, Starion Space Systems Engineer – Space Weather, explains why this is an issue and the findings of the project so far.
Why is this an issue?
Autonomous transport systems rely on a vast array of technologies to navigate, communicate and make split-second decisions. GPS receivers and radar systems, cellular networks and onboard computers – these technologies underpin the automation of transport systems. Although the space weather impacts on these technologies are known, the effects that their disruption would have on the autonomous transport systems that depend on them are not.
In this project, we have completed a systematic assessment of each technology’s vulnerability to various space weather hazards. These hazards range from geomagnetic storms, which can disrupt radio signals from satellites and cause damaging currents in electricity transmission networks, to solar radiation events that might affect sensitive electronics in satellites, aircraft and even systems at ground level.
Many technologies show resilience to space weather effects, for example due to the use of unaffected radio frequencies. However, several key systems emerged as potentially sensitive, including global navigation satellite systems (GNSS), communications systems like satcom and cellular networks, certain types of radar and environmental sensors like radar, data processing and control systems. This is particularly true in autonomous aviation where radiation levels are many times higher than at ground level.
For these more vulnerable technologies, we developed detailed impact pathways. These pathways trace the causal connections from a solar event, through its propagation in space, to its ultimate effect on terrestrial systems. Taking GNSS as an example, a solar flare can trigger ionospheric disturbances, which in turn can cause signal scintillation and positioning errors. During the May 2024 geomagnetic storm, while many people in the UK and elsewhere were fortunate to see the beautiful northern lights, some autonomous agricultural vehicles experienced exactly this type of disruption, leading to crops being planted in the wrong place.
What can be done about this?
A system-level perspective is crucial for assurance of safety in autonomous transport. In a well-designed resilient system, disruption to one component doesn’t necessarily cause failure for the entire system.
Our research underscores the importance of redundancy and diversity in technologies used by autonomous transport systems. Many modern autonomous systems, especially in safety-critical applications like passenger road vehicles, employ multiple navigation technologies. If GNSS is compromised, other systems like inertial navigation systems or visual odometry can step in. This layered approach significantly enhances overall system resilience.
The operational design domain (ODD) concept, widely used in the autonomous vehicle industry, defines the specific conditions under which a given system is designed to function safely. These typically include factors like road type, weather conditions and time of day. One question that we pose in this project is whether space weather conditions be a valuable addition to this framework. By including space weather parameters in the ODD, we could potentially create systems that are not only aware of terrestrial conditions but also of the space environment that might affect their operation, and facilitate operational response to changes in the space weather environment.
What’s next?
As we move into the second half of the SWAVE project, we’re focusing on refining our understanding of these impact pathways and exploring potential mitigation strategies. We’re also eager to engage with industry stakeholders to discuss how these findings might shape future autonomous system designs.
The risk of space weather on autonomous transport is a research area that’s only just beginning to be explored. As boundaries continue to be pushed in autonomous technology, understanding and accounting for the effects of our dynamic space environment will be key to ensuring safe, reliable autonomous transport systems.
Find out more
If you’d like to know more about the SWAVE project or discuss our findings, please get in touch.
This is just one of the space weather projects we’re working on within our space domain awareness programme. Find out more at https://www.stariongroup.eu/services-solutions/space/space-domain-awareness/.
