Amending the Automated-driving ‘Constitution’

SAE International's J3016 standard has been comprehensively revised with new distinctions and definitions. The Committee chairperson, Barbara Wendling, addresses the fine points behind the industry-defining - and perpetually controversial - classification for automated-driving capability.

In May, SAE International and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) jointly released a significant update to SAE's J3016 Recommended Practice: Taxonomy and Definitions for Terms Related to Driving Automation Systems for On-Road Motor Vehicles, commonly referenced as the SAE Levels of Driving Automation. Chief among the revisions to the J3016 Standard was language further clarifying the distinction between SAE Level 3 and Level 4 automation, terms to address and define remote-support functionality and other new definitions and descriptions for driving-automation operability. This latest version of the J3016 Standard can be downloaded free of charge at: https://www.sae.org/standards/content/j3016_202104/

SAE Mobility Media editor-in-chief Lindsay Brooke and editorial director Bill Visnic spoke with Barbara Wendling, chairperson SAE J3016 Technical Standards Committee and a senior researcher at Quantitative Scientific Solutions, about the critical points of the Standard's latest revisions and how they impact the autonomous-vehicle (AV) engineering community and the industry at large.