An international group of experts led by WMG, University of Warwick working together as a part of an ISO technical committee, has published the first international (ISO) safety standard for Level 4 automated driving systems, taking them a step further towards being more widely available. One of the first applications of Level 4 autonomous vehicles is expected to be low-speed automated driving (LSAD) systems, such as pods.

Level 4 low-speed automated driving (LSAD) systems—such as autonomous pods—provide an opportunity for cities to reduce congestion and carbon emissions, thus contributing to net-zero targets. They currently tend to operate on predefined routes in low-speed environments, often being used in commercial, business or university campuses.

Growth in this area has been hampered by a lack of international standards that define minimum performance and safety requirements to be met.

The new standard, ISO 22737, “Intelligent transport systems — Low-speed automated driving (LSAD) systems for predefined routes — Performance requirements, system requirements and performance test procedures” was developed by an international group of experts led by Dr Siddartha Khastgir from WMG, University of Warwick, UK.

In the ISO 22737 standard, the group have set out the specific minimum safety and performance requirements for LSAD systems, providing a common language to help facilitate the development and safe deployment of this technology worldwide. The group included experts from Japan, USA, Canada, Australia, South Korea, China, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Hungary and the UK.

This standardization activity is underpinned by strong research outcomes from the CCAV and Innovate UK funded INTACT research project by WMG and Aurrigo; and also by the research conducted as part of Dr Khastgir’s UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship.

Some of the key points from the new standard include:

• Providing minimum operating capabilities for LSAD systems including guidance on Operational Design Domain (ODD) definition;

• Guidance on how LSAD systems may fit into the wider transport ecosystem;

• Performance requirements for different aspects of the LSAD system such Dynamic Driving Task; Emergency maneuvers (e.g. emergency stop and minimal risk maneuvers); hazardous situation identification; static and dynamic obstacle detection and avoidance; and

• Test procedures for various system functionalities.

ISO 22737 was developed by ISO technical committee ISO/TC 204 Intelligent transport systems, whose secretariat is held by ANSI, the ISO member for the US.