Automotive Engineering - February 2025 - 15

TECHNOLOGY REPORT
STANDARDS
AVSC develops best practices for traceable AV safety inspection protocols
The Automated Vehicle Safety
Consortium has issued a bestpractices
document for OEMs
and stakeholders to develop
and maintain safety inspection
protocols for Automated Driving
System-Dedicated Vehicles
(ADS-DVs).
The Automated Vehicle Safety
Consortium (AVSC) announced its best
practice document for the design, revision,
documentation and lifecycle of a
safety inspection protocol for
Automated Driving System-Dedicated
Vehicles (ADS-DVs).
Recognizing that ADS-DV OEMs and
stakeholders need a way to safely develop
and maintain automated vehicles,
the AVSC worked on a traceable safety
inspection protocol with clear definitions.
A safety protocol that's applicable
to a wide range of " components,
subsystems and inspection triggers "
can make safety inspection-related information
easier to communicate publicly,
which in turn " build[s] public trust
and promote industry standardization, "
the AVSC said in a statement.
The problem, the AVSC said, is that the
industry hasn't yet come up with this
kind of protocol, or even a broad consensus
on what ADS-DV safety inspections
should include. This would mean determining
when it makes sense to start an
inspection, how those inspections should
be generated and what should trigger an
inspection. Perhaps most importantly,
there should be a standard for how those
inspections " should be documented,
conducted, or revised. "
AUTOMOTIVE ENGINEERING
Which is why the new document, titled
AVSC Best Practice for Automated
Driving System-Dedicated Vehicles
(ADS-DVs) Safety Inspection Framework,
now exists. the 20-page document defines
how stakeholders can voluntarily
create, maintain and document their
safety inspection protocols. It includes a
list of minimum inspection elements,
what kinds of issues should result in an
inspection and a classification metric for
ADS-DV subsystems and components.
These are particularly important, AVSC
said, because ADS-DVs do not necessarily
have a human on board who can detect
a potential issue in real-time, something
that might signal the need for a
deeper maintenance check.
The document identifies two main
types of inspection triggers. The first
are those have happen as periodic intervals
(interval-based). The other
would be in response to real-time or
accumulated data, events, or conditions
(known as signal-based). Some inspections
would be started because of a
combination of the two triggers. As an
example, the document uses the challenge
of maintaining tire pressure. After
a set period of time or mileage, a person
might inspect the levels to make
sure the tires are properly inflated. Or, a
check might be conducted if a tire sensor
indicates low pressure. Sure, these
sorts of checks are obvious, but having
a standardized set of rules - and making
them public - would go a long way
towards letting the public understand
how automated vehicles are safe.
" This best practice fills a need in the
industry by defining a process for designing
and evaluation of safety inspection
protocols for autonomous vehicles.
It is another step towards standardization
of terminology around safety inspections,
with the end goal of increasing
public trust in AVs as a viable means
of transportation, " AVSC director
Darcyne Foldenauer said in a statement.
AVSC is a program of SAE Industry
Technologies Consortia (SAE ITC). Its
mission is to, " advance safer testing,
development, and deployment of automated
vehicles. " AVSC's best practice
documents are intended to, " lead to
broader adoption, and ultimately, formalized
standards for autonomous vehicles, "
the group said on its website.
Other than SAE ITC, AVSC's members
include Aurora, General Motors, Cruise,
Torc, Uber, Volkswagen, Waymo and
Zoox. SAE ITC is an affiliate of SAE
International.
Sebastian Blanco
February 2025 15
SAE
Automotive Engineering - February 2025

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