Requirement decomposition and testability in development of safety-critical automotive components

Abstract

12ISO26262 is a recently approved standard for functional safety in road vehicles. It provides guidelines on minimization of unreasonable safety risks during development of embedded systems in road vehicles. However, the development process specified in ISO26262 involves a number of steps that will require changing traditional and well established development processes. In a transition phase, however, due to lack of tool support, the steps may be performed manually, increasing the risk for delays and increased cost. This paper describes a case study in which we have successfully worked with traceability and testability of functional safety requirements, as well as safety requirements assigned to a testing tool that automates integration and verification steps, leading to standard-compliant tool qualification. Our tool qualification method employs fault injection as a validation method to increase confidence in the tool. Our case study will help to avoid many of the new pitfalls that can arise when attempting to realize standard-compliant development. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.