Siddartha Khastgir

Siddartha Khastgir is the Head of Verification & Validation for Connected & Autonomous Vehicles (CAV) at WMG, University of Warwick. He leads several collaborative R&D projects with industrial and academic partners nationally and internationally. His research focuses on generating safety evidence and arguments, test scenario generation, simulation-based testing, and safety of AI systems. Leveraging the cross-domain nature of safety, he is also involved in safety research in aviation, marine and healthcare. Siddartha is an active member of various national and international standardisation and regulatory groups, including ISO, SAE and ASAM. Currently, he represents the UK on several ISO technical committees and is the lead author for two new ISO standards for aspects of automated driving systems. He sits on the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) committees on safety of automated driving. Prior to joining WMG, Siddartha was with FEV GmbH in Germany, leading automotive software development and testing for series production projects. He has received numerous national and international awards for his research contributions, including the prestigious UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship in 2019 focused on safety evaluation of CAVs.

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Presentation

Panel Discussion - Driver Control Assistance Systems (DCAS): Are we going far enough?

The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) World Forum for the Harmonization of Vehicle Regulations (WP.29) in March 2024 adopted the Driver Control Assistance Systems (DCAS) regulation – R171. It entered into force at the end of September 2024. This Regulation ensures improved safety and performance for driver assistance systems. Within the regulation, there has been extensive discussion around the concept of System-Initiated Manouevres (SIM), especially for a driver hands-off situation, which has been kept out of the regulation due to safety concerns. This panel session will bring diverse viewpoints from industry, academia and regulation who would discuss and debate the accuracy and applicability of evidence for both preventing and going ahead of the hands-off SIM concept in the DCAS regulation.