With the rise in automation is clear with self-driving cars, delivery drones and robots, ensuring that the technology behind them is safe can often prevent serious damage to human life.

But for a long time, there has been no standardised approach to safety when it comes to autonomous technologies. Now, a team of UK scientists is taking on the challenge to develop a new process that it hopes will become a standard of safety for most things automated.

Developed by researchers working for the Assuring Autonomy International Programme (AAIP) at University of York in the UK, the new guidance aims to help engineers build a ‘safety case’ in technologies based on machine learning that boosts confidence in them before they reach the market.