Considering Functional Safety - supporting the development of automated driving vehicles by the use of Model-Based Systems Engineering

Starting from the first electric functions in vehicles like the braking function realized with the anti-lock braking system (ABS), some of today’s vehicles have over 100 control units to increase functionality. Functions realize multiple use cases and depend on hardware and software components. This multiple domains development leads to an increase in the complexity of the overall development process. In order to cope with this functional complexity in automated vehicles, new methods for validation are necessary. In order to cope with this functional complexity in automated vehicles, new methods for validation are necessary. These new methods need to identify intended and unintended relationships of and within systems and consider safety elements like hazards. The following contribution shows a new method with an example of distributed test benches for automated trailer transport. The method supports validating safety aspects of stakeholder needs through use cases, scenarios, functions, and components. Possibilities for automated generation and parameterization of test cases are presented. In order to validate the automated driving functions regarding safety, the IPEK-X-in-the-Loop approach for distributed validation environments is used. Hereby, the automated vehicle systems, as well as the geographically distributed test benches, are considered as System of Systems (SoS). Hence, SoS characteristics are taken into account by validation methods in the context of functional safety.