Operational Design Domain Qualification Framework for Remotely Driven Vehicles in Urban Environment

This paper presents an Operational Design Domain (ODD) qualification framework for remotely driven vehicles taking into account safety and connectivity considerations. The framework consists of three stages: ODD investigation, ODD validation, and qualified ODD, with several quality gates between each stage. The safety considerations are established on a scenario-based testing approach, which helps identify potential hazards and assess risks concerning the ODD. Connectivity considerations are considered to ensure that the Remote Driving System (RDS) can operate within the given ODD while ensuring that the collected data is consistent. This is achieved by considering connectivity factors such as observed and predicted performance, which must meet pre-defined targets. The proposed ODD qualification framework is intended to provide a comprehensive and systematic approach for qualifying the ODD of RDS in an urban environment. This methodological framework is expected to support the safe and efficient operation of RDS in various applications and enable the removal of a human in-vehicle fallback.