Domestic researchers have created remarkable international standardization results related to ‘autonomous driving,’ a key technology of the 4th industrial revolution. It is assessed that a foundation has been laid for leading the global autonomous driving market based on our country's technological prowess in the future.


The Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) announced on the 24th of last month that Hong-ki Cha, a standards expert, had been appointed as the editor in charge of the revision of the autonomous driving level standards developed by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE International).

The autonomous driving level standard (SAE J3016) currently being developed by the Society of Automotive Engineers International is a standard document that defines six levels of autonomous driving, from Level 0, which has no autonomous driving functions at all, to Level 5, which supports full autonomous driving.

The standard was first established in 2014 and was most recently revised in 2021.

The autonomous driving level standard is widely used by industries such as automobile manufacturers and parts manufacturers, international organizations such as the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), and national standards and regulations of each country, and is evaluated as the most influential autonomous vehicle-related standard in the world.

ETRI's Hong-ki Cha, a standards expert, has been appointed as the editor for the SAE J3016 standard revision work, and will be responsible for document development, including collecting and coordinating opinions related to future standard revisions and determining the direction of standard development.

ETRI's Hong-ki Cha, a standards expert, has been working on the ORAD Committee under SAE International since 2021, expressing opinions and exercising voting rights during the development of various autonomous driving-related standards, and has also conducted SAE International and SAE J3016 international standardization training for domestic experts several times.

ETRI explained that it will work to reflect our technology in international standards by collecting opinions from domestic manufacturers and experts in autonomous driving in the future work on autonomous driving level standards, and that it aims to complete the revision work by 2024. />
Meanwhile, ETRI has been actively conducting standardization activities related to autonomous driving not only in the International Society of Automotive Engineers but also in international standardization organizations such as W3C and ITU-T since 2020 through the Ministry of Science and ICT's Information and Communication Broadcasting Standard Development Support Project.

Representative standardization activities include developing various standards in the autonomous vehicle field, such as △Vehicle Information Service Standards (Editor Lee Won-seok, Standards Expert Committee Member) and △Vehicle Information Requirements for Autonomous Driving (Editor Cha Hong-gi, Standards Expert Committee Member).

President Seungchan Bang explained, “This is a significant achievement in that by leading the development of autonomous driving level standards at SAE International, not only has Korea changed its status as a standards coordinator in the autonomous driving field, but it has also created an opportunity to secure leadership in international standardization of autonomous driving technology.”

SAE International, founded in 1905 in the United States as the de facto standards organization developing standards for the automotive and aerospace industries, has now established itself as a leading organization of professional technical professionals in various industries including the automotive and aerospace industries, with over 138,000 members in over 100 countries around the world.