Modern vehicles are equipped with many extremely complex embedded systems integrating a large number of software and hardware components from different suppliers. As many of today’s innovations focus on active or passive safety, there are tough demands on systems reliability and functionality which, in turn, put pressure on development processes. Such challenges require an efficient and cost-effective approach calling for standardisation of methods and architectures for use in system, software, and hardware design.

Additional challenges arise due to upcoming standards. Leading automotive manufacturers and suppliers worked together to develop the automotive open system architecture (AUTOSAR) standard, now widely used in production vehicles and throughout the automotive supply chain. The new ISO 26262 standard addresses functional safety in car electrical/electronic systems, defining requirements for the entire development process.

SAFE addresses those upcoming demands. Therefore, three main objectives are in the focus of SAFE:

• Extend the AUTOSAR architecture model to integrate effectively artefacts associated with the application of ISO 26262.
• Enhance methods such as efficient capturing of safety goals and requirements as well as for safety evaluation or conformance testing to benefit from the integrated model.
• Define an ISO 26262-compliant process on top of model-based development using AUTOSAR.