AVSC Develops Best Practices for Traceable AV Safety Inspection Protocols

Automakers need to show their work when it comes to Automated Driving System-Dedicated Vehicles (ADS-DVs), the Automated Vehicle Safety Consortium said in a new document.

February 1, 2025

Sebastian Blanco

The Automated Vehicle Safety Consortium has issued a best-practices document for OEMs and stakeholders to develop and maintain safety inspection protocols for Automated Driving System-Dedicated Vehicles (ADS-DVs). (SAE)

The Automated Vehicle Safety Consortium (AVSC) announced its best practice document for the design, revision, documentation and lifecycle of a safety inspection protocol for Automated Driving System-Dedicated Vehicles (ADS-DVs).

Recognizing that ADS-DV OEMs and stakeholders need a way to safely develop and maintain automated vehicles, the AVSC worked on a traceable safety inspection protocol with clear definitions. A safety protocol that’s applicable to a wide range of “components, subsystems and inspection triggers” can make safety inspection-related information easier to communicate publicly, which in turn “build[s] public trust and promote industry standardization,” the AVSC said in a statement.

The problem, the AVSC said, is that the industry hasn’t yet come up with this kind of protocol, or even a broad consensus on what ADS-DV safety inspections should include. This would mean determining when it makes sense to start an inspection, how those inspections should be generated and what should trigger an inspection. Perhaps most importantly, there should be a standard for how those inspections “should be documented, conducted, or revised.”

Which is why the new document, titled AVSC Best Practice for Automated Driving System-Dedicated Vehicles (ADS-DVs) Safety Inspection Framework, now exists. the 20-page document defines how stakeholders can voluntarily create, maintain and document their safety inspection protocols. It includes a list of minimum inspection elements, what kinds of issues should result in an inspection and a classification metric for ADS-DV subsystems and components. These are particularly important, AVSC said, because ADS-DVs do not necessarily have a human on board who can detect a potential issue in real-time, something that might signal the need for a deeper maintenance check.

The document identifies two main types of inspection triggers. The first are those have happen as periodic intervals (interval-based). The other would be in response to real-time or accumulated data, events, or conditions (known as signal-based). Some inspections would be started because of a combination of the two triggers. As an example, the document uses the challenge of maintaining tire pressure. After a set period of time or mileage, a person might inspect the levels to make sure the tires are properly inflated. Or, a check might be conducted if a tire sensor indicates low pressure. Sure, these sorts of checks are obvious, but having a standardized set of rules – and making them public – would go a long way towards letting the public understand how automated vehicles are safe.

“This best practice fills a need in the industry by defining a process for designing and evaluation of safety inspection protocols for autonomous vehicles. It is another step towards standardization of terminology around safety inspections, with the end goal of increasing public trust in AVs as a viable means of transportation,” AVSC director Darcyne Foldenauer said in a statement.

AVSC is a program of SAE Industry Technologies Consortia (SAE ITC). Its mission is to, “advance safer testing, development, and deployment of automated vehicles.” AVSC’s best practice documents are intended to, “lead to broader adoption, and ultimately, formalized standards for autonomous vehicles,” the group said on its website. Other than SAE ITC, AVSC’s members include Aurora, General Motors, Cruise, Torc, Uber, Volkswagen, Waymo and Zoox. SAE ITC is an affiliate of SAE International.

The best practices document can be downloaded here .