The rapid advancement of automated driving technology is putting pressure on the industry to rethink automotive safety standards.

This is because, despite there being increasing levels of consumer confidence in connected and automated vehicle (CAV) technology, this trust only tends to be present when manufacturers can demonstrate that additional safety measures have been implemented. As a result, a lack of accepted safety practices has been identified as a significant impediment to progress in the widespread adoption of this technology.

To help increase standardization within the industry, automotive manufacturers and regulators have called for the development of more comprehensive standards to guarantee safety requirement completeness for connected and automated vehicles – see the BSI CAV Program.

In response to this request, a significant automotive safety standard has been developed, BS ISO 21448 Road vehicles — Safety of the intended functionality, which will go some way to addressing the concerns from vehicle owners about the safety of their vehicle both in static and dynamic modes of operation.

Why does the industry need automotive safety standard BS ISO 21448?

So far, the BS EN ISO 26262 series on vehicle functional safety have been the primary standards in automotive development.

The requirements in BS EN ISO 26262 define how to address safety risks due to malfunctioning behavior of a vehicle’s electrics/electronics (E/E) system, with the underlying assumption that the nominal performance of the E/E system is acceptably safe.

With the introduction of new connected and automated vehicle technologies, it was recognized that the intended functionality and its implementation - as systems that rely on sensing the external or internal vehicle environment to build situational awareness - can cause hazardous behavior. This is despite these systems being free from the faults addressed in the BS EN ISO 26262 series.

As a result, there was an obvious gap in best practices that needed to be filled.

BS ISO 21448 represents a new set of industry best practices, developed from ISO/PAS 21448, and is devised to cover safety hazards that do not result from any system failures.

In essence, BS ISO 21448 applies to systems operating in an open context, requiring engineers and designers to adopt a safety assurance approach that reduces the uncertainty associated with these types of systems.  It is the use of this new standard in combination with the BS EN ISO 26262 series that helps automated vehicle manufacturers, as well as other organizations who are developing the technology for automated driving, to achieve the absence of unreasonable risk.

To learn more about the automotive safety standards that are available, read our article: ‘Safety first: How safety standards minimize risk in the automotive sector’

What is the safety of the intended functionality (SOTIF)?

There has been a growing need to demonstrate the safety of an automated vehicle within a real-world setting, with given scenarios to which the vehicle needs to be able to adapt.

As a result, it is now becoming a key aspect of vehicle compliance for manufacturers to be able to ensure the safety of the intended functionality (SOTIF) of their automated vehicles. This involves testing the vehicle to show that there is an absence of unreasonable risk due to hazards resulting from functional insufficiencies, or from reasonably foreseeable misuse by persons.

BS ISO 21448 provides guidance on the applicable design, verification, and validation measures needed to achieve the safety of the intended functionality (SOTIF). Rather than focusing on failures, this new standard covers hazardous behavior in the absence of faults: any unintended consequences that result from the technological shortcomings of the system by design.

Some examples of the guidance areas that BS ISO 21448 covers include:

• Design phase example: requirement for analysis of performance insufficiency to ensure  appropriate sensor performance for the intended operating environment

• Verification phase example: requirement for identification of appropriate test cases, verifying the acceptance of identified functional insufficiencies with their respective triggering conditions

• Validation phase example: requirement for appropriate coverage of the intended operating environment to discover unknown triggering conditions for remaining functional insufficiencies

To read more about how standards are supporting the development of CAV technology, visit our Connected Automated Vehicles Topic Page.

Benefits of BS EN ISO 21448 for automotive manufacturers

There are many benefits for manufacturers in adopting BS ISO 21448. These include:

• Improve the safety of your automotive products

• Build trust with your customers

• Ensure compliance with regulations - BS ISO 21448 is potentially being cited in UNECE WP29 vehicle type approval regulations. This would make it a requirement for the industry to comply with the standard as it is part of vehicle type approval of which the regulator in the UK is the Vehicle Certification Agency (VCA).

•  Reduce the risk of recalls over performance concerns

Get access to BS ISO 21448 and over 100,000 other standard documents with a BSI Knowledge subscription. You will have the flexibility and visibility to manage the essential standards you need in order to work with confidence and optimize the safety of your automotive products. Build your own custom collection of standards, or opt for access to our GBM27 Road Vehicle Engineering module and keep up-to-date with any relevant changes to your standards strategy. Request to learn more.

Ensure you are working to the latest safety of the intended functionality best practices when it comes to the development of your connected and automated vehicles. Add BS EN ISO 21448 to your collection today.