The adaptation of pavements to autonomous vehicles has become one of the main challenges in the field of road engineering. These infrastructures must provide a safer and comfortable circulation whilst helping to guide the vehicles and provide information about the status of the road. In spite of the significant advances that have been made in autonomous vehicles in recent years, the development of new pavements adapted to their use has been left behind. This paper presents some of the results obtained in a project aimed at developing an innovative asphalt material, which has been codified using magnetic particles in order facilitate the driving of autonomous vehicles. The results have demonstrated that these encoded materials are sufficiently sensitive to provide information to autonomous vehicles, and can be developed by using less invasive construction procedures. •Asphalt codified with magnetic particles permits for the driving of autonomous vehicles.•Encoded materials are sufficiently sensitive to provide information to autonomous vehicles.•Encoded materials can be developed by using less invasive construction procedures.•Asphalt materials can be codified by using metallic particles.•Dosages of metallic particles lower than 5% showed the best results in terms of performance and costs.