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🧱 Safety Envelope Design

🎯 Role in This Package

Safety Envelope Design is the second step of the
AI Control Safety Package.

Its role is to answer the following question:

❓ If AI is allowed, where must it be strictly constrained?

This design step defines hard operational boundaries
that AI-assisted control must never violate.

It translates the Go / Conditional Go judgment
into explicit, enforceable limits.

🧠 Overview

Safety Envelope Design defines and enforces the
operational boundaries within which an AI / LLM-assisted control system is allowed to operate.

The objective is not performance improvement.

The objective is to ensure that:

⚠️ AI involvement can never push the system outside predefined safe regions

Safety boundaries are treated as:

• 🧱 First-class design elements
• 🧭 Explicit architectural constraints
• 🧯 Independent of AI correctness or intent

🏗️ Conceptual Structure

Where the envelope lives

Safety Envelope enforcement is:

• 🚫 Outside AI logic
• 🧭 Above real-time control execution
• ⏱️ Independent of control loop timing

stateDiagram-v2
    Normal --> Degraded : Boundary approaching
    Degraded --> Normal : Margin restored
    Degraded --> Emergency : Boundary violated
    Emergency --> SafeStop

Key design principles

• 🧠 AI has no direct control authority
• 🧭 FSM enforces envelope boundaries
• ⏱️ PID remains deterministic and bounded
• 📴 Envelope enforcement does not depend on AI correctness

🧩 What Is a Safety Envelope

A Safety Envelope is the explicitly defined set of conditions
under which the system is allowed to operate.

It defines where control is permitted.

Everything outside the envelope is explicitly disallowed.

Typical envelope dimensions

• 📐 Physical limits
  (position, velocity, force, current, voltage)
• ⏱️ Timing limits
  (response delay, settling time, update intervals)
• 🎚️ Control authority limits
  (gain ranges, output saturation)
• 🔄 Operational modes and transitions
• 🌡️ Environmental or aging assumptions

The envelope is conservative by design
and reflects responsibility, not optimism.

🔍 Design Scope

1️⃣ Envelope Definition

• Identification of critical variables and limits
• Separation of:
  • Normal region
  • Degraded region
  • Emergency region
• Boundary setting based on assumed failure responsibility

2️⃣ Pre-Violation Detection

• Boundary-approach detection
• Margin- and trend-based logic
• Early intervention before violation occurs

3️⃣ Supervisory Enforcement

• FSM-based envelope supervision
• Deterministic enforcement actions
• Clear separation from AI advisory logic

4️⃣ Enforcement Actions

• Authority clamping
• Mode downgrade or fallback
• Complete AI disengagement when required

🧪 Example: Safety Envelope for AI-Assisted Thermal Control

(Example details are intentionally omitted.)

Examples are used only to validate envelope logic
—not to justify AI usage.

🚫 What This Design Does NOT Do

This design explicitly does not include:

• Control performance optimization
• AI-based safety judgment
• Assumptions of perfect models or predictions
• Replacement of certified safety systems

The Safety Envelope is:

Hard · Explicit · Conservative

📦 Deliverables

You will receive:

• 🧱 Safety Envelope specification
• 📐 Boundary definitions and limits
• 🧭 Supervisory structure and FSM logic
• ⚠️ Pre-violation and violation actions
• 📄 A design summary document (PDF or Markdown)

🧑‍💼 Typical Use Cases

• Introducing AI into safety-critical systems
• Preventing AI-driven overreach
• Explaining and defending limited AI authority
• Preparing for audits or internal safety reviews

💼 Engagement Details

⚠️ Important Note

Safety Envelopes are intentionally restrictive.

If AI cannot operate within the envelope,
the correct design choice is to:

🚫 Limit or disable AI involvement

📌 Previous step:
→ AI Control Risk Review

📌 Next step:
→ Recovery Control Design

📬 Contact

📧 shinichi.samizo2@gmail.com
🌐 samizo-aitl.github.io