Last verified: July 4, 2026
Every DVP row asks an evidence question. A standard citation answers that question only if the standard was written to address the failure mode, operating envelope, and test conditions the row implies. When it was, the citation carries the row. When it was not, the citation is decoration, and the evidence question remains open whether or not a document number appears in the cell.
The gap between what a cited standard establishes and what the application actually demands is where qualification risk accumulates. That gap has a shape, and the shape varies structurally across five target platforms. This piece classifies each platform by its qualification posture, maps the evidence structure that posture creates, and names what commonly cited documents do not establish. Individual application cards, organized by parameter class, will follow. This anchor sets the framework they hang on.
A standard earns a DVP row only after the evidence question it answers is named. The evidence questions it does not answer get equal structural weight.
Five Postures
Settled. One governing document, written for this application, covers pack-level qualification with named test protocols and acceptance criteria traceable to clause numbers. The DVP row cites a clause. Evidence burden: comply and cite.
Layered. Multiple documents from multiple bodies each answer a different evidence question for the same application. No single document is sufficient. The DVP must map which document governs which row, identify the seams between layers, and close gaps that no layer owns. Evidence burden: comply with each layer, name the seams, close them with engineering rationale or customer agreement.
Split. Multiple standards exist across separate evidence domains (transport, safety, operational) without a unifying application-level document. The standards were not written to coordinate with each other. Evidence burden: assemble coverage, verify no domain is uncovered, accept that the assembled framework was never designed as a framework.
Borrowed. No standard was written for this application. The DVP borrows from adjacent domains and must justify every borrowing: why the adjacent standard's failure modes, test conditions, and acceptance criteria apply to an application its drafters never considered. Evidence burden: cite the source, name the originating domain, document the justification, flag where the application's operating profile exceeds the borrowed standard's assumptions.
Void. No published standard governs pack-level qualification. The DVP is the standard. Every threshold traces to a failure-mode argument and first-principles analysis, not a clause number. Evidence burden: define, justify, and defend everything.
The posture determines the type of work a DVP row requires. A settled row is a lookup. A void row is an engineering deliverable. Most of the applications Coreshell targets fall between those poles, which is why the classification matters.
6T Ground Vehicle — Settled
MIL-PRF-32565 governs rechargeable lithium battery packs for military ground vehicles. Single document. Written for this application. Named test protocols. Pack-level acceptance criteria. Clause-traceable thresholds. (Tier 1: published military performance specification.)
This is the reference case for what settled looks like. Depth on MIL-PRF-32565's test matrix, parameter classes, and clause-level requirements is deferred to a dedicated application card.
Does not establish: Cell-level electrochemical qualification. Non-6T military applications (UUV, UAS, robotics). Supply-chain provenance or FEOC status. Extending MIL-PRF-32565 to adjacent military platforms without acknowledging the application-boundary crossing is a scope error regardless of intent.
eVTOL/eCOTL — Layered
The layering exists because propulsion batteries present failure modes that no single existing document was written to address. DO-311A was drafted for avionics and auxiliary batteries. EASA's SC-VTOL framework was built later, on top of DO-311A, to close the propulsion gap. The result is a multi-document, multi-jurisdiction evidence structure where each layer answers a different question and the seams between layers are the applicant's responsibility.
Three document families, in the order an engineer encounters them:
(1) RTCA DO-311A
DO-311A (December 2017) provides Minimum Operational Performance Standards for rechargeable lithium battery systems. Test suite covers baseline safety: thermal runaway containment, overcharge, short circuit, deep discharge, insulation resistance, environmental qualification, capacity verification. (Tier 1: published RTCA standard.)
Does not establish (DO-311A): Propulsion-pack acceptability. Aircraft-level thermal-runaway risk closure. Crashworthiness. Available system capacity and energy verification for propulsion mission profiles. EASA MOC-3 SC-VTOL Issue 2 states this directly:
"was developed for batteries powering other aircraft systems or equipment and did not necessarily consider electric and hybrid aircraft propulsion battery systems."
The MOC "does not address or supersede other tests and considerations needed for propulsion battery system certification." (Tier 1: published EASA MOC guidance.) DO-311A has a scope boundary here, and the DVP must respect it as one.
(2) FAA AC 20-184
FAA AC 20-184 (October 2015) provides nonmandatory guidance for installation, operation, maintenance, and airworthiness of installed rechargeable lithium batteries under 14 CFR parts 21, 23, 25, 27, and 29. Appendix F maps large-battery compliance to DO-311 topics plus selected RTCA DO-347 tests including thermal-runaway containment, environmental qualification, and high-rate duty-cycle tests. AC 20-184A has not been issued as of July 4, 2026; the FAA Advisory Circular library lists only AC 20-184. (Tier 1: published FAA advisory circular.)
Does not establish (AC 20-184): A propulsion-pack qualification matrix. This is advisory installation guidance that predates EASA's propulsion-battery SC-VTOL framework. It does not address eVTOL mission profiles or vertical-flight power demands.
(3) EASA MOC SC-VTOL Series
This series layers propulsion-specific requirements on top of DO-311A. Three documents, two final and one pending:
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MOC-3 SC-VTOL Issue 2 (July 2025) establishes propulsion battery thermal runaway non-propagation and containment requirements that go beyond DO-311A's section 2.4.5.5 thermal-runaway containment test, which was written for non-propulsion batteries. The DVP owner must verify the specific non-propagation and containment acceptance criteria in the MOC text against the DO-311A baseline to identify where the propulsion-battery requirements exceed the DO-311A test suite. (Tier 1: published EASA MOC guidance; DVP owners should consult the full MOC-3 text for clause-level requirements.)
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MOC-4 SC-VTOL Issue 2 (July 2025) accepts DO-311A or ETSO C-179b for rechargeable lithium batteries only when complemented with aircraft-level risk assessment considering installation limitations identified during battery qualification. (Tier 1: published EASA MOC guidance.)
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MOC-5 SC-VTOL Issue 1 remains proposed consultation material. Consultation closed October 10, 2025. As of July 4, 2026, MOC-5 has not moved from proposed to final/published status. Any DVP row that depends on MOC-5 content is building on proposed material. Label it accordingly.
The C-rate environment illustrates why layering is structural rather than bureaucratic. Hover phases at 2.5–4.5C and cruise at 0.75–1.5C (per published engineering analyses; depth on Tu et al. deferred to a separate publication summary) have no analog in the duty cycles DO-311A was written against. The standard's test suite does not include a propulsion mission-profile power test because its drafters were not thinking about propulsion.
Drone/UAS — Split
The split exists because transport, generic safety, UAS-specific pack requirements, and operational suitability are governed by separate bodies that did not coordinate their work. Each answers a different evidence question. No application-level document unifies them.
The five evidence domains and their governing documents:
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UN 38.3 → transport eligibility. Evidence question answered: can this battery be shipped? Scope ends there. Operational safety, mission adequacy, and application qualification remain unaddressed. (Tier 1: published UN regulation.)
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IEC 62619 (industrial) or IEC 62133-2 (portable) → generic lithium battery safety. Which applies depends on pack classification. Misapplying 62133-2 to an industrial drone pack is a scope error. Neither standard addresses UAS-specific operating profiles, mission endurance, or the mechanical environment of a drone airframe. (Tier 1: published IEC standards.)
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ASTM F3005-22 → sUAS pack design and assembly. Covers cell requirements, mechanical design and assembly, electrical design, and pack maintenance for small UAS. Subordinate to ASTM F2910. A proposed revision (WK66135) updates cell-manufacturer certification references from UL2054/UL1642 to UL62133 and UN38.3, and adds FAA-requested recovery support provisions. (Tier 1: published ASTM standard; Tier 2: proposed revision work item.)
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EASA UAS design verification guidance (Guidelines on Design verification for UAS, Issue 3; Easy Access Rules for UAS, June 2026) → operational design verification. Requires a DVP with auditable pass/fail criteria. Calls for battery status and remaining-capacity information to the remote pilot, useful-life evidence for batteries in normal and emergency conditions, and backup-power operational-time assumptions. Does not set specific numeric thresholds; the applicant defines them. (Tier 1: published EASA guidance.)
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Remaining gap → unified system-level acceptance criteria. EASA's design verification framework requires the applicant to establish battery performance evidence but does not itself set numeric acceptance thresholds for mission endurance or emergency reserve. No document unifies the pack-level standards (UN 38.3, IEC 62619/62133-2, ASTM F3005-22) with the operational verification framework into a single coordinated qualification matrix.
The DVP owner assembles coverage from these uncoordinated sources and owns the seams between them. No document tells you how to do this because no document was written with the others in mind.
Humanoid Robotics — Borrowed
No published standard governs battery pack qualification for humanoid robots. The borrowing is necessary, and every borrowing carries an asterisk that requires engineering rationale.
ISO 13482:2014 specifies safety requirements for personal care robots. It addresses human-robot interaction hazards and considers physical contact. (Tier 1: published ISO standard.)
Does not establish (ISO 13482:2014): Pack-level thermal propagation requirements. Abuse tolerance test protocols. Cycle life acceptance criteria. C-rate qualification for bipedal power-pulse profiles. Operating envelope limits for a pack in a thermally constrained humanoid torso. Vibration, crush, or pressure test conditions specific to humanoid form factors. The standard addresses the robot's relationship to people. The energy storage system falls outside its scope entirely.
ISO/FDIS 13482 (Edition 2) remains under development at approval stage 50.00. The public catalog abstract describes safety requirements for service robots in personal and professional/commercial applications. It does not identify battery-pack qualification or energy-storage acceptance criteria in its publicly available scope description. Even if Edition 2 publishes in the coming months, the available evidence does not indicate it will close the pack-qualification gap. (Tier 2: standards body catalog, public abstract only.)
The borrowing landscape typically draws from IEC 62619 for generic lithium battery safety and from automotive thermal propagation standards such as ECE R100 and SAE J2464, which assume a vehicle thermal environment, not a humanoid torso. Specific borrowed documents and their scope limitations are mapped in the humanoid robotics application card. Every borrowing requires documented justification: why the adjacent standard's test conditions and failure modes apply to a bipedal platform with a fundamentally different mechanical environment, thermal architecture, and power-demand profile.
This is the most labor-intensive posture short of void. The engineer inherits frameworks from adjacent domains. Every citation still requires a rationale that will be examined in any serious design review.
UUV/Subsea — Void
No published standard governs pack-level battery qualification for unmanned underwater vehicles or subsea autonomous systems. No publicly identified active work item, committee designation, or working group has been found in IEC TC21, IEC TC35, SAE, IEEE, or NATO STANAG working groups as of July 4, 2026. (Editorial assessment based on public standards-body catalogs and work-program listings.)
This finding is bounded. Standards-body work programs may include member-only, export-controlled, or customer-specific activity invisible in public sources. In the public evidence available to a DVP owner, the landscape is empty.
Does not establish (commonly cited adjacent documents): IEC 62619 and UN 38.3 do not establish pack-level pressure qualification for depth-rated enclosures. No published standard or specification establishes connector leakage criteria, thermal rejection criteria at depth, or post-abuse containment conditions in a pressure-compensated housing where venting behavior differs fundamentally from atmospheric conditions. No marine vehicle standard establishes mission-profile acceptance criteria for UUV power demands.
The void posture means the DVP is the standard. The engineering team defines the pressure envelope (atm or bar, with depth equivalents), thermal rejection test conditions at operating depth, connector and seal integrity criteria, abuse tolerance requirements in a sealed or pressure-compensated enclosure, and cycle life acceptance criteria under the thermal constraints of a submerged platform with limited heat rejection paths. Every threshold traces to a failure-mode argument.
What distinguishes the void posture from every other: the failure-mode analysis itself becomes the deliverable. In a settled posture, the standard's drafters have already done that analysis, and the DVP owner inherits their judgment. Here, the acceptance criteria are what the analysis produces. The work is harder, slower, and more exposed to challenge in a customer review. It is also, when done well, more precisely matched to the application than any borrowed framework could be.
Applying the Framework
The posture classification determines the evidence burden for every DVP row:
| Posture | Application(s) | Evidence Burden |
|---|---|---|
| Settled | 6T ground vehicle | Clause citation |
| Layered | eVTOL/eCOTL | Clause citation per layer + seam analysis showing which layer owns which evidence question |
| Split | Drone/UAS | Coverage assembly across uncoordinated standards + gap identification for uncovered domains |
| Borrowed | Humanoid robotics | Citation + documented justification for borrowing from the originating domain |
| Void | UUV/subsea | Failure-mode argument + first-principles threshold definition |
The "does not establish" field throughout this piece carries no criticism of any cited document. Standards are written for specific applications under specific assumptions. Stating what a document does not establish is a service to the DVP owner who might otherwise let a citation carry more weight than the document supports. A DVP row that cites DO-311A for propulsion-pack acceptability has a document number in the cell and an open evidence question behind it.
Individual application cards follow, each organized by parameter class within the posture framework established here. MIL-PRF-32565 depth is next. The cards will be legible because the posture is named first: when you arrive at the eVTOL card and see three document families mapped across parameter classes, you already know why no single column covers every row.
Standards bodies are working on several of these gaps. Some of this map will change, and when it does, the posture shifts and the evidence burden shifts with it. Until then, the job is the same: name what you know, name what you don't, and make the call.
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EASA MOC-5 finalization status: Consultation closed October 2025 but MOC-5 SC-VTOL Issue 1 remains proposed rather than final as of July 4, 2026, and any DVP row depending on its content should be flagged as building on non-final material until EASA publishes.
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ISO 13482 Edition 2 scope: ISO/FDIS 13482 is at approval stage 50.00 and expected within months, but the public abstract still does not identify battery-pack qualification criteria, so the humanoid robotics posture remains borrowed even after publication unless the final text adds energy-storage scope.
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ASTM F3005 revision trajectory: Work item WK66135 proposes updating cell-certification references to UL62133 and UN38.3 and adding FAA-requested recovery provisions, which would tighten the sUAS pack-design lane without closing the system-level gap.
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Blue UAS list transition: DIU says the Blue UAS Cleared List is transitioning to DCMA under a July 2025 Secretary of War memo, but the public list still does not expose battery cell supplier, chemistry, pack assembler, or component-cost origin, so platform clearance remains distinct from pack qualification.