Keywords: robotics and autonomous systems, product acceptance, regulation, policy, railway, autonomous inspection, safety assurance.

Robotics and Autonomous Systems (RAS) are being deployed across multiple sectors, yet regulatory and product acceptance frameworks remain fragmented and often provide only partial coverage. This creates uncertainty and can hinder the adoption of autonomous technologies. This paper presents a structured roadmap methodology for assessing regulatory coverage and identifying gaps in existing RAS frameworks. Developed through a review of cross-sector literature and stakeholder engagement, the methodology combines system definition, regulatory mapping, gap analysis and framework prioritisation. A railway inspection and maintenance vehicle use-case is used to demonstrate its application. The results show that existing standards provide substantial coverage for conventional engineering domains, including communications, power systems and sensing technologies, but reveal notable gaps relating to artificial intelligence, adaptive systems, autonomous decision-making and safety-critical assurance. The proposed approach provides a repeatable method for evaluating regulatory readiness, prioritising framework development activities and supporting greater cross-sector harmonisation of RAS assurance practices.

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