ISO 26262 Functional Safety Masterclass: Build a project!

Define the brake light system function, inputs, outputs, and interfaces, and outline driving mode conditions, performance targets, safety shortfalls, and dependencies to create a solid functional safety concept.

Define how the function behaves and interacts with the driver and traffic participants, detailing inputs, outputs, boundaries, interfaces, operating modes, functional shortfalls, performance, legal requirements, and dependencies.

Identify functional failures and hazards, and determine their effects to perform hazard analysis and risk assessment. Score hazards to calculate the ASIL and assign safety goals for brake light behavior.

Perform HARA by evaluating severity, controllability, and exposure to determine ASIL or QM levels. Apply duration or frequency and the VDA 702 catalogue, using the sum method.

Define the safe state and the FTTI for the brake light function, ensuring 500 ms detection and a total within the two-second rule.

ASIL decomposition halves the safety concept into ASIL A components to cut development costs and speed up development, while still meeting the ASIL B safety goal with two independent bodies.

Explain the relationship between FTTI and FHTI, showing FHTI (diagnostic test interval plus fault reaction time) must be shorter than FTTI to prevent hazard.

Explore the diagnostic time interval in functional safety, showing how dual brake lamp failures trigger a safety goal and how ASIL levels shape diagnostic frequency and hardware requirements.

Explains how to refine the technical safety concept for a brake light system, allocating functional safety requirements to BCM hardware and software, defining interfaces, and outlining diagnostic and testing steps.

Define the technical safety concept by detailing the architecture blocks and their requirements, refine system elements to hardware and software, and specify the hardware–software interface and communication, preparing for review.

Explore three system safety analyses—FMEA, FTA, and DFA—and how they identify failure modes, verify findings, and reveal dependencies to improve concepts and uncover gaps.

Define test specs from safety requirements with V-model, perform fault injection on brake switch voltage to verify brake lights respond within 300 milliseconds and document results in a test report.

Differentiate integration testing from validation testing to prove vehicle level safety goals are achieved and that the functional safety concepts and technical safety concepts mitigate identified risks.

Develop a safety validation report by compiling test reports and expert judgments. Show vehicle-level safety rule implementation and sufficient risk mitigation, including justification of the default tolerance time interval.

Define the technical safety concept and assign technical safety requirements to hardware and software elements, including their interfaces; apply FMEA, FDA, DFA, and validate vehicle-level safety goals.

Review hardware safety requirements and hardware architectural design specs using inspection, walkthrough, or simulation to identify faults and validate with Matlab Simulink.

Explore hardware safety analyses for ISO 26262, detailing FMEA and FMEDA with diagnostics, and metrics like single point, latent, and probabilistic failure rates across ASIL B, C, D.

Define hardware safety requirements and architectural design specs, then test every hardware element and the overall chain against functional requirements, using standard-based methods and example brake lamp fault checks.

Refine hardware safety requirements into architectural specs and element interfaces, enabling parallel hardware and software development while applying FMEA/FMEDA, FTA, DFA, testing, and independent reviews for ASIL C/D.

Explore software development environment, processes and tools, and define software safety requirements, hardware software interfaces, and software architectural design specifications for module and unit development, reviews, safety analyses, and testing.

Define software safety requirements that refine functional and technical safety needs for the body control module, detailing software architecture, unit design, and diagnostic routines for brake lamps.

Learn the refined hardware–software interface that enables brake-lamp diagnostics via a memory register with idle, request, active, fault states, a four-to-six-volt band, vehicle bus messages, and light control.

Define software architectural design specifications by modularizing into base software, QM application software, and ASIL B safety software with clear interfaces, enabling brake light diagnostics every second.

Explore the third discretization layer by defining unit requirements that trigger base software calls, e.g., Get_Bulb1_Voltage_Status() to retrieve lamp states within ten milliseconds.

Perform software reviews across software requirements, architectural specifications, unit design, and code to ensure ISO 26262 compliance through static verification, walkthroughs, inspections, and automated checks.

Apply software FMEA and software FTA to assess safety software, base and application software. Choose ASIL C/D to use both analyses; ASIL B requires FMEA; perform dependent failure analysis.

Explains testing the safety software via the V-model, detailing unit tests, integration, and embedded software validation with MC/DC, statement, and branch coverage, including timing diagnostics.

Document software development environment, establish processes, toolchain, guidelines, traceability, then apply ISO 26262 stages—from requirements to design to unit and integration tests—supported by independent reviews and safety analyses.

Perform a quick recap of ISO 26262 twelve parts, covering part three to six on concept, system, hardware, and software development, and preview bonus content and remaining parts.

Explore ISO 26262 safety management by establishing processes, managing competences, handling safety anomalies, performing impact analysis, and delivering a safety plan with a safety case for release.

Integrate ISO 26262 functional safety into the development process from the start, align with company culture, and assign a functional safety manager to oversee safety activities.

Coordinate functional safety competence management by tracking resources, people, and project involvement, identifying experience gaps, and securing training or external support to adapt to dynamic staffing.

Identify and document safety anomalies within ISO 26262 functional safety masterclass, exploring hardware or software remedies and external measures when a brake light switch cannot be diagnosed.

Trigger anomalies to guide impact analysis for safety projects and system reuse. Analyze change, identify impacted safety work products such as requirements and tests, and plan activities.

Create a safety plan that lists work products, assigns responsibilities, defines tailoring, and synchronizes concept, system, hardware, and software activities with ISO 26262 and ASIL requirements.

Create and maintain a safety case that collects all safety work products as artifacts, updates with each change, and justifies the release based on maturity.

Explore ISO 26262 safety management: integrate safety into processes from start to finish, supported by a safety manager, competence management, impact analysis, safety plan, and safety case for release.

Define and enforce production, service, and decommissioning requirements for ISO 26262, including end-of-line tests, environmental limits, and hazard controls for high-voltage systems.

Leverage ISO 26262 supporting processes by establishing a development interface agreement, enforcing configuration and change management, verifying via reviews and tests, and evaluating tools and proven in use for traceability.

Explore ASIL decomposition to enable safe state via independent paths, assess dependent failures at interfaces, and compare inductive FMEA with deductive fault tree analysis in qualitative and quantitative safety analyses.

Guidelines part 10 and 11 of ISO 26262 cover fault tolerance time interval, hazard analysis, safety assessments, external measures, and safety elements out of context.

Explore ISO 26262 part twelve for motorcycles, using MSIL instead of ASIL in HARA and the rule to develop lower than safety goal, with validation tests focused on driver controllability.

Explore ISO 26262 safety topics, including production, service and decommissioning (part 7), easel decomposition and safety oriented analysis such as FMEA, FTA, FMEDA and DFA (part 9).

Review ISO 26262 modules from concept to production. Explore hazard analysis, risk assessment, and safety concepts across system, hardware, and software development, with ASIL analyses and guidance on finding information.