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Automotive Functional Safety

Automotive functional safety focuses on prevention or reduction of severity of a potentially dangerous condition by implementation of automatic protection. The automatic protection system is designed to respond appropriately to hardware and software errors, foreseeable misuse, deal with environmental conditions, technology specific hazards and security attacks. 

ISO 26262:2018

ISO 26262 is an international standard for the functional safety of road vehicles. It provides guidelines and requirements for the development of safety-related systems and components in road vehicles. The standard covers the entire safety lifecycle of a vehicle, from the concept and design stages through to production, operation, maintenance, and decommissioning.

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ISO 26262 ensures that automotive electronic systems are designed and produced to be functionally safe, minimizing the risks of failures or malfunctions that could lead to accidents or injuries.

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1.Vocabulary 2 .Management of f unctional s afety 2 - 5 Overall safety management 3. Concept phase 7. Production and operation 4. Product development at the system level 3 - 5 Item definition 8. Supporting processes 9 . ASIL - oriented and safety - oriented analyses 10. Guideline on ISO 26262 4. Product development at the hardware level 4. Product development at the software level 5 - 5 General topics for the development at hardware level 5 - 6 Specification of hardware safety requirements 5 - 7 Hardware design 5 - 8 Evaluation of the hardware architectural metrics 5 - 9 Evaluation of the safety goal violations due to random hardware failures 5 - 10 Hardware integratio n and testin g 8 - 5 Interfaces within distributed developments 8 - 6 Specification and management of safety requirements 8 - 7 Configuration management 8 - 8 Change management 8 - 9 Verification 3 - 7 Hazard analysis and risk assessment 3 - 8 Functional safety concept 9 - 5 Requirements decomposition wit h respect to ASIL tailoring 9 - 6 Criteria for coexistence of elements 6 - 5 General topics for the product development at software level 6 - 7 Software architectural design 6 - 6 Specification of software safety requirements 6 - 8 Software unit design and implementation 6 - 9 Software unit verification 6 - 10 Software integration and verification 6 - 11 Testing of the embedded software 12. Adaptation of ISO 26262 for motorcycle s 11. Guideline on Application of ISO 26262 to semiconductors 7 - 5 Planning for production , operation , service and decomissioning 7 - 6 Production 7 - 7 Operation, service and decomissioning 8 - 14 Proven in use argument 8 - 15 Interfacing an application that is out of scope of ISO 26262 8 - 16 Integration of safety - related systems not developed according to ISO 26262 8 - 13 Evaluation of hardware elements 8 - 10 Documentation 8 - 11 Confidence in the usage of software tools 8 - 12 Qualification of software components 4 - 5 General topics for the product development at the system level 4 - 6 Technical safety concept 4 - 7 System architectural design 4 - 9 Safety validation 4 - 8 System and item integration and verification 2 - 6 Project dependent safety management 2 - 7 Safety management regarding production, operation, service and decommissioning 12 - 5 General topics for adaption for motorcycles 12 - 6 Safety culture 12 - 7 Confirmation measures general 12 - 8 HaRa 12 - 9 Vehicle integration and testing 12 - 10 Safety validation 9 - 7 Analysis of dependent failures 9 - 8 Safety analysi s

ISO 26262 specifically regulates:

  • Safety Lifecycle Management: ISO 26262 covers the entire lifecycle of automotive safety-related systems, including design, development, production, operation, service, and decommissioning.

  • Risk Management: It provides guidelines for risk assessment and the management of potential hazards associated with malfunctions of electrical and electronic systems.

  • Development Process: The standard outlines requirements for the development process, including system-level, hardware, and software design and development.

  • Validation and Verification: ISO 26262 emphasizes the importance of validation and verification of safety-related systems. This includes testing and analysis methods to ensure that systems meet the necessary safety requirements.

  • Functional Safety Assessment: It defined when a functional safety assessment needs to be carried out.

  • Documentation and Traceability: The standard necessitates comprehensive documentation and traceability throughout the development process.

  • Automotive Safety Integrity Levels (ASILs): ISO 26262 introduces Automotive Safety Integrity Levels, which are used to classify the inherent risk in a system and determine the necessary safety requirements to mitigate these risks.

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2018 a new version of the ISO 26262 standard has been published.

This version added some topics to the standard which have not been sufficiently considered in the first version from 2011.​

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Guideline on Application of ISO 26262 to semiconductors

Chapter 11 of the 2nd Edition includes a significant section on managing IP, covering perspectives from IP developers and integrators, with a focus on SEooC integration. The chapter emphasizes the importance of effective communication and collaboration between IP developers and integrators and provides insights into common challenges and best practices.

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Adaptation of ISO 26262 to motorcycles, busses and trucks

The 2018 ISO 26262 version increases the scope of the standard beyond passenger car applications to include motorcycles, trucks, busses, trailer and semi-trailers. For motorcycles a separate chapter (12) has been introduced. 

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Link to cybersecurity

With cybersecurity for being mandatory for new vehicles sold in Europe starting from M2024, the significance of consideration of cybersecurity for automotive application rises. The new version of ISO 26262 provides recommendations on how to handle cybersecurity in functional safety context.

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Apart from those major changes, updates on the guidelines for confirmation measures, safety anomalies, dependent failure analysis, fault tolerance have been made. Guidance for model-based development has been introduced. 

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SOTIF - ISO 21448:2022

ISO 26262 defines functional safety as the absence of unreasonable risk due to hazards caused by malfunctioning behavior on an E/E system.

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However for systems which rely on sensing or which rely on vehicle environment to build situational awareness, also the intended functionality can cause hazardous behavior, even if the systems are free of faults addressed in ISO 26262.  Those considerations are especially relevant for systems using machine learning.

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The problems with the intended functionality can result from mistakes or gaps in specification or from limitations in the technical capabilities of the system or system components.

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ISO 21448 summarizes such issues under name name "functional insufficiency" and defines safety of the intended functionality as absence of unreasonable risk resulting from hazardous behaviors related to functional insufficiencies. Additionally it provided a standardized process and tools to systematically detect and eliminate functional insuffciencies and achieve SOTIF.

  • Implementation of the system, software and hardware development processes along the V-models of ISO 26262. 

  • Packages to kick-start your functional safety activities.

  • Best practices for SoC (system-on-chip) development in FuSa context.

  • We conduct FTAs, FMEAs and FMEDAs.

ISO 26262
Consulting

  • Employee training to support SOTIF introduction.

  • Achieving and maintaining compliance with SOTIF regulations.

  • Assistance is definition of relevant SOTIF scenarios and trigger conditions.

  • Validation and verification support.

ISO 21448 / SOTIF Consulting

  • One safety plan and one safety case to cover ISo 26262 and ISO 21448 requirements.

  • Integration of ISO 21448 processes and work products into an existing process landscape.

Integrated Safety Case

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