Earlier this week, a coalition of key companies in the automaker, supplier, and technology industries published a white paper, titled Safety First For Automated Driving, in which the collective describes a framework for the development, testing, and validation of autonomous vehicles. According to remarks made in the wake of the release of the paper, the coalition members claim that the 157-page report is not only the broadest representation across the industry to date, it is the first such statement to offer “clear traceability,” proving autonomous vehicles to be “safer than the average driver.”
The 11-member coalition is comprised of that includes Aptiv, Audi, Baidu, BMW, Continental, Daimler, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, Here, Infineon, Intel, and Volkswagen. In joint statement, the companies wrote, “With [this white paper’s] publication, authors and experts from each of the participating partners will present the group’s work at industry and technology conferences internationally over the next several months.”
Absent from this coalition are Alphabet’s Waymo, GM’s Cruise Automation, Tesla, and the Amazon-financed Aurora, among others. Ford, Lyft, Uber, Volvo, and Waymo have a coalition of their own, known as the Self-Driving Coalition for Safer Streets, which launched in April 2016, with the stated goal of “work[ing] with lawmakers, regulators, and the public to realize the safety and societal benefits of self-driving vehicles.”
Safety First For Automated Driving advocates 12 guiding principles of automated driving, as follows:
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Safe operation
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Operational design domain
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Vehicle operator-initiated handover
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Security
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User responsibility
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Vehicle-initiated handover
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Interdependency between vehicle operators and automated driving systems (ADS)
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Safety assessment
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Data recording
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Passive safety
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Behavior in traffic
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Safe layer
The white paper can be read in its entirety here.
