The Chair of JTC 1 opened the virtual plenary on 10 May with over 140 participants from 25 national standards bodies from around the world. The six-day event consisting of daily three-hour online sessions, covered many technical areas along with management, administrative, social and collaborative aspects. Once again, the virtual format enabled participation of JTC 1 members who might not normally be able to attend a face-to-face event.
Highlights
Next steps in digital twin standardization:
SC 41 (IoT) has expanded and changed its name and scope to “Internet of things and digital twin”, with the creation of the new working group on digital twin. SC 41 also has a new preliminary work item on reference architecture and has established an advisory group on digital twin strategy.
Progress on trustworthiness
Johann Ansenga, from Luxembourg was nominated as the new convenor of Working Group 13 – Trustworthiness (WG 13) to continue the existing work for a 3-year term. This group is currently focusing on four areas of activity which are progressing well:
- Ontology for ICT trustworthiness assessment
- Standing document “Landscape of trustworthiness”
- Systems engineering – Trustworthiness vocabulary
- Study period – Trustworthiness reference architecture
New white papers on emerging technologies
Expanding on the valuable work and reports that the Emerging Technologies Initiative group (JETI) creates, the group is in a position to pilot a new approach for publishing technology trend reports (TTRs) as additional public JTC 1 White Papers. The process details are still being refined but we look forward to seeing these being published in the future.
Resolving the mixed-mode meeting problems
Covid-19 is still a big factor in current meeting scheduling and it’s clear that moving back to the original face-to-face only meetings is many months away. In the interim period virtual meetings have been extremely successful. However, when there is a transition back to face-to-face, it’s possible that there will be a need for a mixed-mode input, allowing delegates to participate even though their country or organisation has still got a ban on travel. Advisory group 17 is tasked with discussing and documenting how this can be made to work. Updates will be made available for the November plenary.
Establishment of a JTC 1 ad hoc group on collaboration across domains
Noticing that there is an ever-growing horizontal aspect to ICT and the standards that support it, there is a need to better understand the implications, opportunities and possible collaborations to enable JTC 1 to develop the forward-looking principles that will help it move forward in the coming years. To make this happen the Ad hoc group on “Collaboration across domains” has been formed to investigate this area, develop and propose future plans which will be shared at the November plenary.
Management and development
Advisory groups
Advisory group 1 (AG 1) “Communications” is encouraging all JTC 1 participants and other interested parties to follow JTC 1 on social media (twitter and LinkedIn @JTC1News ) and to share its news on the website by sending items to Antoinette Price at apr@iec.ch, who will post them on revamped website jtc1info.org.
Muhammad Ali has stepped into the role of historian to keep the important history and story of JTC 1 alive and up to date through the use of SD 2, available on the jtc1info.org website.
Advisory group 2 “JTC 1 Emerging Technologies Initiative” (JETI) has identified the 2021 top 25 priority technologies. It will be launching its online survey for all JTC 1 entities as well as national bodies, to discover future JTC 1 standardization work.
JETI, in cooperation with ISO TC 20/SC 16 will be holding an open workshop, later in the year, in the area of information technology for unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) in order to identify further opportunities to improve ISO and IEC programs of work in the area of information technology for UAS. The workshop will include a presentation of JTC 1’s recently published technology trend report on drones.
Although advisory group 6 “Autonomous and data rich vehicles” will be disbanded, the work that has been initiated relating to vocabulary will be transferred to SC 42 on artificial intelligence to progress and develop further.
Working groups
Smart cities (WG 11) has now published five standards and has five more in development, which cover seven topics in total. It has created a new group – data use in smart cities, which will identify data use related standards in JTC 1 and other standards development organizations (SDOs), develop foundational guidance, identify use cases and study legal, quality, technological, market and societal requirements for standards covering data use in smart cities.
WG 12, 3D printing and scanning, has four standards under development which are all expected to be published in the coming year, including vocabulary, framework for additive manufacturing service platform and medical image-based modelling. There is also the reestablishment of its ad hoc group for 4D printing to follow technology developments.
Quantum computing (WG 14) is expanding its liaisons with other SDOs and work with other SCs, such as the proposal for Overview of Platform Capabilities Type and Platform as a Service with SC 38, which covers cloud computing and distributed platforms. WG 14 is also developing a new TR on “Introduction to Quantum Computing”.
IEC and ISO
IEC SMB highlighted in its report the creation of a new IEC Technical Committee 129: Robotics for electricity generation, transmission and distribution systems. The scope defined as:
Standardization of robotics applied in power systems, i.e. power plants, substations, transmission and distribution lines, etc., mainly includes terminology, design, functions and performance, test methods, interfaces between robots and information systems, operation methods, and safety and security requirements.
This area has multiple points of overlap and interconnection with JTC 1 standardization activities.
ISO is in the middle of a review and pilot focussing on machine readable standards and the future direction and work required to advance this area.
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