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Requirement – Operational Design Domain Limits

 SAE J3016 SAE J3016 (2021), conisders ODD to comprise elements that can be allocated to different categories including, but not limited to, environmental, geographical, time-of-day restrictions, and / or the required presence or absence of certain traffic or roadway characteristics. In addition, all object classes, which the driving ADF shall respond to, must be defined in the ODD. 

Defining a consistent ODD is one of the key success factors for an ADF. For every element in the ODD, the possible values or parameter ranges must be defined, e.g. the illumination can be limited to values greater than 500 lx, to ensure that the driving ADF only operates during day time. The ODD might however change during the development due to newly discovered limitations or changes in the development. In this case, it is not feasible to cover the originally defined ODD any longer. Therefore, a constant review of the function limits in relation to the ODD is necessary. One indicator is an inconsistent behaviour of the vehicle function while driving with an activated ADF.

An ADF that operates outside the ODD can instil false customer trust and overconfidence. The function shall be able to identify whether it is operating within or outside the ODD, which implies:

– Recognising all defined ODD elements and their parameter ranges and,

– Recognising the ODD boundaries before leaving them, with enough time to warn the driver and / or to take necessary actions (depending on the feature itself, e.g. a safe stop on the hard shoulder, operation in degraded mode, etc.).

To secure that the function operates only inside the ODD limits, scenarios must be defined to verify and validate the ADF at its ODD borders. 

Main Question

Is the function operating within the ODD limits?

Sub-Questions

  1. Can each inherent ODD limit/boundary be detected by the function once it is reached?
  2. Are the mechanism to detect each ODD limits defined?
  3. Are there any known limitation in reliably detecting the  ODD Limits?
  4. Has an investiagtion been done to determine if there is a need for having an early warning to the driver when approaching the ODD limits?
  5. Are there mechanisms to monitor if the ADF can detect the ODD limits in the field?
  6. Are the scenarios defined to verify and validate the operations of ADF at its ODD limits?

References