A number of automotive companies have teamed up to create new guidelines for autonomous vehicles. The paper, titled “Safety First Automated Driving” was made with the intent to establish framework on universal safety principles that all self-driving cars should have to follow. The standards deal with how the industry should monitor and report safety standards when building and operating the autonomous cars.
Aptiv, Audi, Baidu, BMW, Continental, Daimler, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, Here Technologies, Infineon and Volkswagen were all involved in crafting the paper. The paper further outlines 12 rules and principles for the vehicles that includes items such as safe operation, operational design domain, vehicle operator-initiated handover, security, user responsibility, vehicle-initiated handover, interdependency between the vehicle operator and the automated system, safety assessment, data recording, passive safety, behavior in traffic and safe layer. The paper is over 100 pages, and contains details on each topic listed above.
Establi8shing guidelines comes at a time when self-driving cars my be facing additional governmental concerns. The US Department of Transportation has been working on its own set of rules at the federal level, while states are working on their rules as well- some more detailed than others.