As automobile manufacturers take the leap from Advanced Driving Assistance Systems and implement Automated Driving Systems into their vehicles, certain aspects of vehicle safety become increasingly important. Whereas in today’s level 2 automation, the human driver is involved in the dynamic driving task, in level 3 and above, more technological measures are necessary to ensure safety, therefore requiring a newly designed electronic architecture. Nonetheless, analysis of human factors remain a key element to ensure the safe operation of the vehicle. Though conventional techniques may be employed to solve some of these challenges, others require new tools to be developed. In the absence of an international standard, the foundation for discussions of completeness is missing. With an expert analysis of topics and tools a focus can be brought into discussions and serve as a basis for further development. This analysis may also lead to uncover areas where final answers and methods are missing, but serves also to identify areas where effort must be concentrated. When members of the industry apply these principles to the development of automated driving systems, the number of accidents will be minimized following the testing and deployment of this new technology, therefore maximizing safety and customer acceptance.

This submission represents the culmination of multiple sessions within industry, but also with contracting parties and government agencies with the goal of the creation of a comprehensive list of guidelines for the safe development of automated driving systems.

BMW has defined 12 different areas that have been focused into guidelines for the development of a vehicle with a safe automated driving system. These areas include topics from functional safety through the human factors aspects of system handovers to the consideration of passive safety.

While the 12 guidelines are selected to be a comprehensive list of safety topics, they are general in form and do not contain the details necessary to apply it as a blue print for the development. As these automated driving systems are not on the roads in appreciable numbers, the data from real world events are missing. Also the projects to develop the methods to generate and analyze data are still underway, which also forces some guidelines to remain broadly formulated.

The proposed guidelines concentrate the capabilities and limitations of today’s safety evaluation for vehicles when applied to automation. By following the guidelines, the industry can ensure that this technology meets an acceptable level of safety when it comes to market.