SAE J3016 defines the six levels of driving automation, from no automation at Level 0 to full automation at Level 5, along with the vocabulary for describing who is responsible for which part of the driving task. It is the taxonomy the entire autonomous vehicle industry, and most regulators, describe themselves with.
SAE J3016
J3016 is a taxonomy rather than a protocol, and it is the most quoted document in its industry. Its real contribution is the concept of the dynamic driving task and the fallback — who is expected to act when the system reaches its limits — which is what the levels are actually distinguishing.
- Six levels - 0 through 5, distinguished by who monitors, who falls back and where the system operates.
- Operational design domain - The conditions a system is built for — the most useful idea in the standard and the least quoted.
- Adopted by regulators - Referenced in rulemaking and type approval well beyond its origin as an engineering taxonomy.
- Not a conformance regime - There is no certification; a manufacturer asserts its own level.
J3016 is worth noting as a standard that shapes an industry’s language without producing a machine-readable artifact. The State of Robotics & Autonomous Systems APIs finds the autonomous vehicle segment scoring 13.1 with 6.8% publishing a contract. The industry agrees precisely on how to describe what its systems do and has not, so far, made that description something another system can read.
Referenced in API Evangelist papers
This standard shows up in my published research. These reports read the machine-readable evidence provider by provider — and put this standard in the context of a real sector.
The State of Robotics & Autonomous Systems APIs
The taxonomy an entire industry describes itself with — and it produces no machine-readable artifact, in a segment scoring 13.1.
