Automotive Industry Insights

ASAM OpenDRIVE

Description
The OpenDRIVE format provides a common base for describing road networks with Extensible Markup Language (XML) syntax, using the file extension .xodr. The data that is stored in an OpenDRIVE file describes the geometry of roads, lanes, and objects, such as markings on the road, as well as features along the roads, for example signals. The road networks that are described in the OpenDRIVE file can either be synthetic or based on real data.

The main purpose of OpenDRIVE is to provide a road network description that can be fed into simulations for development and validation purposes of AD and ADAS features.

Status
The latest version of OpenDRIVE is V1.7.1, released in June 2021.

Insights into how this standard might evolve
Various use cases leverage road network descriptions without necessarily requiring a scenario. One example is traffic simulations with intelligent traffic agents, which interact directly with the road network without strictly needing a scenario. These use cases will still require some level of interaction between the road network description and the test case or the ODD characteristics. It is plausible to expect that such an interaction could still be realized using the interfaces being defined in a scenario description (see OpenSCENARIO recommendations), with an otherwise empty scenario (no dynamic content like maneuvers). However, it is also possible that a direct need to extend OpenDRIVE with a similar interface to the test and the ODD will evolve.