Technology Readiness Level

Technology Readiness Level (TRL)

The Technology Readiness Level (TRL) is a method to estimate the maturity of a technology. Originally developed by NASA in the 1970s, this scale has been widely adopted by various organizations.

Figure 1: NASA’s Nine Technology Readiness Levels¹

Key Resources

• 📄 Technology Readiness Level Definitions - Detailed criteria for hardware and software assessment
• 📚 NASA Systems Engineering Handbook - See Chapter G4 for establishing TRLs

Footnotes

1. Faidi, S. & Olechowski, A. (2020). “Identifying Gaps in Automating the Assessment of Technology Readiness Levels.” Proceedings of the Design Society: DESIGN Conference. 1. 551-558. DOI: 10.1017/dsd.2020.160 (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) ↩