▲Shin Jae-gon, Head of Autonomous A2Z Business Division


KATS to Provide a Venue for Sharing Autonomous Driving Industry Strategies and Standardization Trends
Domestic experts participate in ISO TC204 and TC22… Conduct international standardization activities
V2X Security Standards, Communication Reliability, OBU, RSU Communication Security Securing is Important

At a seminar organized by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, experts suggested that creating businesses based on the ODD (Operational Design Domain) of the technology under development could be a survival strategy for autonomous driving companies.

On the 8th, the National Institute of Standards and Technology held the '2023 Autonomous Vehicle Standards and Industry Strategy Seminar' and shared an overview of the autonomous vehicle industry strategy and national standards promotion.

Shin Jae-gon, head of the Autonomous A2Z business division, argued that the mass production of autonomous driving in the B2C sector is difficult in reality, and that startup companies need to create businesses that can be run in their own ODDs.

Since Uber's autonomous vehicle accident in 2018, the social acceptance of autonomous driving has become an issue, and it is unlikely that mass production of B2C vehicles that require 99.9% safety will become a business model in the near future. As can be seen from the closure of Argo AI, which ranked third in the world, the profit structure that is clearly low compared to the cost of technology development is a very serious problem in the autonomous driving industry.

The new business division manager said that companies that judged that mass production of autonomous vehicles targeting B2C would be difficult are conducting business by clearly setting ODD and implementing perfect autonomous driving in areas that satisfy the conditions, and the most representative example is John Deere's autonomous tractor called Nongsula.

The new business division head said that Autonomous A2Z is also pursuing business models such as logistics delivery and shuttles, and that each company needs to create a business based on the ODD of the level 4 autonomous driving technology that is under development.

Park Soo-jin, a member of the Korea Standards Association who appeared as a presenter that day, shared the ‘Current status of autonomous vehicle standardization.’

Last May, the White House announced the National Standardization Strategy for Strategic and Future Technologies, stating that it would prioritize the standardization of autonomous vehicles and electric and hydrogen vehicles, and support the budget for research and development in the United States for this purpose.

Commissioner Park said that Korea also needs to focus on promoting cooperation with the United States, and that domestic experts are already participating in international standardization activities through TC204 and TC22 of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), an international standardization organization.

In Korea, standardization is being promoted through policy cooperation with other ministries, centered around the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and is also being achieved through cooperation between industry-academia organizations. At the Autonomous Driving Standardization Forum, chaired by Sung-Hwan Cho, CEO of Hyundai Mobis, approximately 300 experts from 150 organizations are participating, discussing standardization issues in many meetings and conducting international standard response, national standardization work, R&D, etc.

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▲Oh Gwang-hae, Director of Standard Policy Bureau, National Institute of Standards and Technology

Before the event began, Oh Gwang-hae, Director of the Standards Policy Bureau at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (hereinafter referred to as KATS), said, “KATS is pursuing proactive activities that can establish a domestic industrial foundation by establishing KS national standards and, going forward, establish international standards.” He added, “In order to become a practical global leader, we need the ability to discuss standards with major countries, and KATS will strengthen the autonomous standardization forum and expand public-private cooperation accordingly.”

Sim Sang-gyu, Executive Director of Autocrypt, spoke about V2X security standards and said that while protecting against hacking is one of the roles security should play, ensuring trust in communications is also important.

▲ Sim Sang-gyu, Executive Director of Autocrypt

To ensure trust in communications, messages are exchanged based on electronic signatures based on the IEEE 1609.2 standard when communicating between vehicles or infrastructure.

At this time, the certificate management of automobiles required is being standardized by a standard called IEEE 1609.2.1 and is being promoted as a domestic standard.

Executive Director Shim continued “It is expected to take a long time to reach Level 5 autonomous driving, so we are focusing not only on making the cars themselves smarter, but also on developing the infrastructure,” he said. “We also need to consider the communication security of the car’s OBU, which is exposed to external communication, and the RSU, which is installed on the road.”

On the other hand, while our country was hesitating due to communication-related issues, China quickly settled the dispute and has been providing pilot services since last year, and the United States has announced that it will expedite the introduction of technologies related to C-ITS.

Executive Director Shim emphasized that Korea must also create opportunities to provide services domestically and internationally, as well as create good operational policies, so as not to fall behind.