Singapore Publishes Technical Reference for AVs

TR 68 is the result of an industry-led yearlong effort administered by the Singapore Standards Council’s (SSC’s) Manufacturing Standards Committee[2]. Overseen by the ‘Technical Committee on Automotive’ appointed by SSC, four working groups formed of representatives from the AV industry, research institutions, institutes of higher learning and government agencies each developed a part of the TR.

The TR is expected to accelerate the industry’s efforts to develop AV technology in Singapore.

CETRAN staff were involved in the development of TR 68 with roles in the Technical Committee, working groups; and provided technical advisory support.

“We are happy to have contributed to creating TR 68 as it will facilitate the commercialisation of autonomous vehicles in Singapore.”

Mr Doug Parker, Chief Operating Officer of Aptiv Autonomous Mobility

What’s in TR68

TR 68 is split into 4 parts, each available separately at the Singapore Standards eShop (or as one package at a discounted rate).

With the exception of use of the term ‘AV’, TR 68 normatively references and adopts SAE J3016-2018 for the taxonomy of automated driving, such is the generally internationally accepted practice.

Here is a short summary of what each part of TR 68 discusses:

Part 1: Basic Behaviour

Intended as a reference for appropriate automated conduct the Dynamic Driving Task for vehicles. Three key areas are covered:

1. Referencing the existing rules applicable for automated driving and presenting interpreted rulesets for selected driving tasks and manoeuvres
2. Directives and principles for the application of rules to an automated driving policy
3. A process for the continuous improvement of automated driving rules and driving policy

Included as an Annex is a list of applicable rules for AVs. This is based on  Singapore’s Basic theory of driving (Tenth Edition) & Final theory of driving (Ninth Edition).

Part 2: Safety

Intended to provide safety guidelines for Autonomous Vehicles deployed on public roads in two key areas:

1. Design and production quality
2. Safe operation in the context of specific applications in Singapore

This includes system-level safety guidelines in the following areas:

• Vehicle Functional and Operational Safety requirements
• System Safety applicability for the whole Operation Design Domain
• Competencies and quality management for vehicle developer, system integrator and system operator
• Appropriate safety goals for guiding safety assurance

Included as an Annex are use cases for Singapore.

Several automotive, industrial, and quality management standards are referenced including ISO 26262, and ISO21448.

Part 3: Cybersecurity principles and assessment

Intended to provide guidelines for an enhanced cybersecurity framework for Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) deployed on public roads. Two tiers of cybersecurity assurance are set out:

1. Cybersecurity principles are presented for AV Developers/Operators to manage cybersecurity for the full lifecycle of the AV, including design, development, operations, maintenance, and decommissioning. Intended to ensure a secure-by-design system and secure operations which are verified by a full internal cybersecurity assessment.
2. A framework for the independent cybersecurity assessment of AV systems is presented with the purpose of providing a recommended process for discovering overlooked cyber weaknesses, testing the preparedness of the system against cyber threats.

The independent assessment framework includes three main parts:

1. System review
2. Threat risk analysis
3. Cybersecurity Testing of the vehicle in three areas
   • Vulnerability Analysis
   • Fuzz Testing
   • Attack Simulation

An example AV Attack Surfaces & Threat identification, and threat scenario assessment is included as an Annex.

Several automotive, and cybersecurity standards are referenced including the NIST SP 800 series and ISO 21434(draft).

Part 4: Vehicular data types and formats

Intended to provide guidelines on standardised services and data exchange formats. This aims to facilitate efficiency and interoperability in communication processes between multiple parties in the AV ecosystem. This includes:

1. Identification of possible use cases where data exchange and/or transfer may be necessary
2. Defines and describes the datasets required
3. Recommends guidance on vehicular data types and formats that all players in the AV ecosystem should use

The references include communications, V2X and ITS related standards, including; SAE J2570, SAE J2945, ISO 17024, and ISO 14819.

Moving Forward

The Singapore Standards Council intends to continue the development TR 68 with on-going feedback from industry and as the technology matures. This would expand the scope, details and maturity of the TR to cover other aspects of AV development and deployment. See the joint media release +

“The joint development of TR 68 reflects the close collaboration between the AV industry and Government as well as research institutions and institutes of higher learning. As we work together with the industry to prepare for the pilot deployment of autonomous vehicles in Punggol, Tengah and Jurong Innovation District in the early 2020s, we hope that TR 68 will guide AV industry players in the safe and effective deployment of AVs in Singapore.”

Mr Loh Ngai Seng, Permanent Secretary for Transport and Chairman of the Committee on Autonomous Road Transport for Singapore (CARTS)

[1] The levels of driving automation are defined in SAE J3016, along with a general taxonomy and definitions for automated driving which are commonly adopted by the automotive industry. In brief, for Level 4 the system is capable of driving in a limited domain without the involvement of a human, including taking care of the fallback condition where a system failure or limit is reached. Level 5 extends this to include no limit to the domain. More details at the SAE J3016 webpage +

[2] The Manufacturing Standards Committee (MSC) is one of the Standards Committees of the Singapore Standards Council set up by Enterprise Singapore, the national standards body. See more at the SMF-SDO website +