Israeli startup Foretellix has introduced Measurable Scenario Description Language (M-SDL) to the ADAS and AV ecosystem and contributed the language concepts to the Association for Standardization of Automation and Measuring Systems (ASAM) standards committee. M-SDL is the first open language that addresses multiple shortcomings of today’s formats, languages, methods and metrics used to verify and validate vehicle safety.
Foretellix also announced its M-SDL Partners Program, providing a mechanism for industry feedback and refinement of M-SDL. A partial list of members includes AVL List, Volvo Group, Unity Technologies, Horiba Mira, TÜV SÜD, Automotive Artificial Intelligence (AAI), Metamoto, Vector Zero, Trustworthy Systems Lab of Bristol University, and Advanced Mobility Institute of Florida Polytechnic University.
As many industry experts have noted, safety methods and metrics based on quantity of miles driven in simulation and road testing, the number of disengagements, and/or traditional test coverage are insufficient, non-scalable, and not easily shared or reused.
In addition, due to the autonomous uncontrollable behavior of AVs and traffic, developers cannot be sure their tests are actually orchestrating desired scenarios or evaluating test coverage as intended. Finally, none of these techniques offer adequate mechanisms to identify previously unknown hazardous edge case scenarios nor aggregate coverage metrics across all virtual and physical testing platforms.
By opening and contributing M-SDL, tool vendors, suppliers and developers will be able to use a common, human readable, high-level language to simplify the capture, reuse and sharing of scenarios, as well as easily specify any mix of scenarios and operating conditions to identify previously unknown hazardous edge cases. They will also be able to monitor and measure the coverage of the autonomous functionality critical to prove AV safety, independent of tests and testing platforms.
Ziv Binyamini, CEO of Foretellix, said, “The ability to achieve measurable safety of AVs is still being limited by a lack of standards, methods and metrics that inhibit reuse and sharing, are insufficient, and/or non-scalable. We believe in an open ecosystem and open standards and are actively supporting ASAM in its efforts to create an open language standard.”
Version 0.9 of the M-SDL specification, an overview of M-SDL, and the M-SDL Partner Program application, is now available on the Foretellix website. Foretellix has also contributed the M-SDL concepts to ASAM as part of its active role in helping to shape the next generation of the OpenSCENARIO standard.
Foretellix will also be exhibiting at Autonomous Vehicle Technology Expo Novi in October, while its founder and CTO Yoav Hollander will give a presentation titled ‘Realizing measurable safety using scenarios and coverage-driven verification’ at the Autonomous Vehicle Test & Development Symposium. To learn more about M-SDL and how it can be used, read the interview with Hollander we did before the Test & Development Symposium in Stuttgart.