Standards for "K-Autonomous Driving" to be established

A national standard (KS) for autonomous driving will be established.

The Korea Agency for Technology and Standards (Director Lee Sang-hoon) of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said it will complete the standard development of the level of classifying and defining data and autonomous driving stages such as autonomous vehicles, vehicles, and the location and speed of exchange between vehicles and infrastructure, and start the establishment of the National Standards (KS).

The agency also plans to develop a technology to test and evaluate autonomous driving performance in virtual space and propose it as an international standard to advance the era of autonomous driving through standardization.

The standards for autonomous vehicle data is to standardize basic data formats such as location (latitude, longitude, altitude, etc.) and speed exchanged through vehicle and object communication (V2X), and provide vehicle safety services such as vehicle collision prevention and risk section notification by combining these basic data.

This standard is currently being tested in autonomous vehicle demonstration complexes such as Seoul, Sejong City, Daegu City, and Gyeonggi Province, and is expected to be applied to autonomous driving of national roads in the future.

The level of self-driving cars has mainly cited the SAE standard, but as the level standard was published as an international standard (ISO) in September, the standard was developed based on this.

Based on the driving automation system of vehicles, the level standard categorizes autonomous driving into six stages: △ level 0 (no driving automation), △ level 1 (driver assistance), △ level 2 (partial driving automation), △ level 3 (conditional driving automation), △ level 4 (advanced driving automation), and △ level 5 (complete driving automation).

This standard provides a guide to the development of autonomous vehicles in the industry and helps improve consumers' understanding of autonomous vehicles.

The Korea Agency for Technology and Standards plans to establish the three standards developed this time as national standards (KS) within the first half of next year and expand the development of standards to ▲ transportation and infrastructure data, ▲ major parts such as cameras and lidars, and ▲ Vehicle Communication (V2X) security.

Moreover, as international interest in virtual space tests is increasing as a way to accelerate the commercialization of autonomous vehicles, the Korea Agency for Technology and Standards plans to preoccupy standards by developing self-driving virtual test evaluation technology by 2023.

Meanwhile, the agency held an "autonomous vehicle standardization forum and international conference" in Yeosu, Jeollanam-do, with more than 100 experts attending online and offline, and announced standardization results and future plans on November 16.

At the international conference, experts from Germany, the United States, and South Korea announced technologies and evaluation methods to verify self-driving safety through virtual space tests.

Germany introduced requirements for verifying autonomous vehicle virtual space tests, the U.S. introduced safety principles for autonomous vehicle evaluation, and Korea introduced digital twin-based virtual space tests.

Lee Sang-hoon, head of Korea Agency for Technology and Standards, said, "Key standards to support the commercialization of self-driving vehicles such as autonomous driving data and levels are being developed one after another."

Reported by Smart City Today