Safety and Artificial Intelligence – A look into the ISO 8800 Standard
As of October 17, 2024, the ISO/PAS 8800 standard went under publication. Generally, it takes 7 weeks from this time for the standard to be released.
Category: Functional Safety
Functional Safety
It’s Requirements all the Way Down
Explore the requirements hierarchy: how many levels are reasonable, their relationships, and the value of bidirectional traceability.
Functional Safety
The FMEA and ISO 26262 Relationship
Discover how FMEA and ISO 26262 align to improve system, hardware, and software safety in automotive engineering.
Functional Safety
How We Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Requirements
“Show me the requirements!” is a ubiquitous refrain in systems, safety, and security engineering. Requirements are the basic foundation of most rigorous development standards like ISO 26262. Requirements can be an invaluable tool for communicating intent and guiding the development process. Why, then, are requirements often so difficult, seen as a challenge, and, in some cases, not used when they are created? One possibility is that documents are written that contain statements which are called “requirements” but are not really requirements, or are confusing, so the message is lost.
Functional SafetyResponsible AI
Syntax, Semantics…Say What?
There are countless debates whether Artificial Intelligence is really “intelligent”, and then what “intelligent” really means. Some of these debates gravitate towards discussions on syntax and semantics.
Autonomous SystemsFunctional SafetyResponsible AI
Digging into the ISO/IEC 5469:2024 – Artificial intelligence: Functional safety and AI systems standard
The ISO/IEC 5469:2024 standard was released in January of 2024, and, unlike ISO/CD PAS 8800, it is not specific to just automotive.
Functional Safety
Where the FMEDA can go Wrong
In functional safety we consider risks stemming from two main buckets of failures: systematic and random hardware failures. Systematic failures are faults generally introduced by human error, thereupon we reduce our risks by improving processes and procedures, or by improving the design with various levels of review (verification).
Electric MobilityFunctional Safety
High Voltage Electrical Safety – Designing in Layers of Protection
Discover the layers of protection needed for automotive high voltage systems, including key safety standards like FMVSS 305 and ISO 26262. Learn how these protections help mitigate risks and ensure electrical safety.
Functional Safety
How does ISO 26262 address open source software?
We previously wrote about updates on the Third Edition of the ISO 26262 Standard. One of the updates included the additional topic of using pre-existing software architectural elements (PSAE), as addressed by the ISO/PAS 8926:2024 specification which was recently released in January of 2024.
Autonomous SystemsFunctional Safety
Autonomy Safety Standards in Automotive
The world of standards in the automotive autonomous vehicle industry is continually changing, at least relative to more stable standards in functional safety such as the ISO 26262:2018 standard. It is important to note that this blog has been written at the beginning of February 2024 as there will be changes in the coming months
Functional Safety
Updates on the Third Edition of the ISO 26262 Standard
Although in fall of 2023 the preparation for the Third Edition of the ISO 26262 standard started, don’t expect an official release until sometime in Q2 of 2027.
Functional SafetyResponsible AI
ISO 26262 is like bringing a knife to a gun fight with AI
As you have seen in the news on Tuesday, October 24, 2023, the California Department of Motor Vehicles issued a suspension of General Motors’ Cruise autonomous vehicles from California public roads.
Functional Safety
Do you bleed safety?
One cool fall afternoon in Minnesota, as we were just finishing up football practice during my sophomore year of high school, our coach came over and gave us a “pep talk”. With his bloodshot eyes, veins sticking out of his neck, he began telling us how in Texas, high schoolers “bleed” football. Unfortunately to his disappointment, at five feet ten inches and 145 pounds (listed as 6’-1”, 195 lbs.), I didn’t bleed football.
Of course, when our coach made this comment, he didn’t literally mean that if someone from Texas was cut that football would come gushing out of them. He was just illustrating the passion, the commitment, the tenacity these kids had for football; the “football is life” mindset, as Dani Rojas would say in Ted Lasso.
I thought about that moment today as I scrolled through my social media and saw a repost from a connection, belittling the safety of electric vehicles, by showing multiple clips of them catching fire. I know it was meant to highlight the negative sentiment towards this technology, but it somehow struck a bad chord for me, as someone who has dedicated more than 20 years of my life to making vehicles safer for people I’ve never met. I may not bleed football, but I do bleed safety.
After I let my initial feelings subdued, the engineer in me wondered if there was any truth in an increased risk. I was able to find the yearly number of reported highway vehicle fires in the U.S. from a National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) report. This report states that in 1980 there were 456,000 reported vehicle fires, 415,000 in 1990, 325,000 in 2000, 184,500 in 2010 and 173,000 in 2020. Not only has there been a staggering reduction of 283,000 vehicle fires a year over this 40-year period, but also the number of vehicles, miles driven, and average age of vehicles have all increased. Additionally, in 1980 there were nearly zero vehicles with some form of propulsion coming from high voltage, in comparison to 2020 were there had been a total of 5.8 million electric and hybrid electric vehicles sold in the U.S., according to Oak Ridge National Laboratory. This was reassuring and made me proud of all those others in automotive that bleed safety.
I don’t fault the person that made this social media post. It’s more exciting to show a video of a car on fire in the middle of the highway, rather than a video of someone getting out of their car at the grocery store with the caption “human survives car drive”. It reminds me of one of my favorite signs I saw near the employee break room at a Home Depot that read, “Safety is when nothing happens”. When we do our job correctly, safety should be boring. As safety enthusiasts, we don’t thrive on awards, or fame, or to hit the mass media, but we are passionate and driven by safety; “safety is life”. Do you bleed safety?
Functional Safety
The start of a new beginning – the responsible engineer
At SRES we not only support functional safety, autonomy safety and cybersecurity, but we promote and are evangelists for responsible development. Being responsible is the sun for safety and security.
Autonomous SystemsFunctional Safety
Organizational compliance department: a sample framework
Whether you are working in safety, security, AI or other disciplines, it is critical that you show compliance of standards and regulations to your customers and to external regulators. Taking a compliance approach illustrates to everyone internally and externally that you take these requirements seriously and enables the required culture for success. Compliance not only requires training of staff, but also requires the voice from top management. In this blog we discuss an approach to build up a compliance department within your organization.
VideosFunctional Safety
Short series: PMHF Formula
When conducting the FMEDA for the quantitative analysis, it is required to calculate the PMHF. There are formulas provided in the ISO 26262:2018 standard, however, the formula shown in Part 10 doesn’t have a physical or practical meaning. In this video we dive into the formulas and show you how to use them correctly.
VideosFunctional Safety
Short series: Decomposition
Although we commonly think of the ISA/IEC 62443 series of standards as our leading guidance for industrial cybersecurity, it is actually a very horizontal standard which is technology-independent and can be applied across a number of applications. We are seeing references to the series of standards in regulations and directives like the EU Machinery Directive, Radio Equipment Directive (RED) and the EU Cyber Resilience Act.
VideosFunctional Safety
Short series: documentation
Although documentation might be one of the least favorite activities for an engineer, it is extremely critical when we talk about safety, security and responsible AI. In some cases there are regulatory requirements, or in other cases a customer my require assessments. Assessors and auditors look for good documentation. High quality documentation is also important, so that we are driving actual outputs that support our activities.
VideosFunctional Safety
Short series: safety analysis (FMEA)
In this video we discuss why Safety Analysis, such as an FMEA in ISO 26262, should not include RPN values that have been traditionally used in automotive FMEAs.