NIST Leader Gives Overview of Automated Vehicle R&D to South Korean Representatives

In August 2023, representatives from NIST, U.S. organizations, and Korean organizations, including the Korea Automotive Technology Institute (KATECH) and the Korean Standards Organization (KSA), met in the South Korea-U.S. Standards Forum to exchange information and explore possible areas of collaboration on automated vehicles (AV). The hybrid meeting was held in person in Seoul, Korea on August 10, 2023 with additional remote participation (August 9, 2023 in the U.S.). At the meeting, NIST’s Jayne Morrow, Senior Advisor for Standards Policy, provided a keynote address on the status of the U.S. National Standards Strategy, and NIST’s David Wollman, Deputy Division Chief of the Smart Connected Systems Division, presented NIST’s research on AVs.

Wollman covered the foundational work for NIST’s involvement with automated vehicles, including research on AV communications, cybersecurity, vehicle teleoperation, and other related areas. NIST’s early work to engage stakeholders included an AV workshop focused on identifying and developing safety measurement methodologies for AVs. This effort led to NIST launching an Automated Driving Systems Technical Working Group which pursues ways to assess AV performance, including through identification of an Operating Envelope Specification to support AV measurements and testing. 

Wollman also presented an overview of NIST’s AV program, including the following projects:

• Automotive Sensor Perception: Developing measurement capability to characterize automotive sensors.
• Artificial Intelligence (AI): Developing simulation capability to enable testing of AI algorithms for AVs.
• Cybersecurity: Developing an automotive cybersecurity community of interest and capability for measuring adversarial machine learning and defensive mitigations in AVs.
• Communication Technologies: Developing co-simulation capability to assess AV communications performance.
• Systems Interaction Testbed: Developing an integrated testbed to evaluate systems interactions in automated vehicles.

Additionally, Wollman previewed NIST’s Standards and Performance Metrics for On-Road Automated Vehicles Workshop, that was subsequently held in early September 2023.

At this same event, Dr. You-Jun Choi of the Korea Automotive Technology Institute (KATECH) presented on its connected automated vehicle research and development trends and standards issues.

Choi stated that Korea’s Automated Vehicle Innovation R&D Project seeks to realize fully automated driving in the next 5+ years, and Korea is pursuing projects in the following strategic areas: 

• New vehicle convergence technology
• New convergence of information and communications technology
• New road traffic convergence technology
• Service creation for AVs
• Establishment of an industrial ecosystem

Korea’s Automated Mobility Center oversees these projects and integrates the results. Choi noted that Korea has set milestones for national implementation of AVs, including establishing hybrid communications for AVs and commercializing AVs. Choi reinforced the significance of the U.S. National Standards Strategy for Critical Emerging Technology, which seeks to deepen standards cooperation with allies and partners to support a robust standards governance process. Choi provided an overview of Korea’s extensive research collaborations, including with SAE and NIST’s Smart Connected Systems Division. Additionally, Choi addressed the challenges facing AV development that Korea seeks to overcome, such as vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communications and cybersecurity.