A V&V strategy can support the process of ensuring appropriate performance and safety capabilities of the ADF. This strategy should support the argumentation for the safety of the intended functionalities. Additionally, V&V activities of the intended functionalities regarding the risk of safety violations without system faults include integration-testing activities. In order to achieve this strategy, several issues, which are based on driving test cases, should be addressed, especially the test goals and V&V targets. For details, see the ‘Testing‘ and ‘Simulation Tools’ categories. The test goals and V&V targets can be derived from the specifications and safety requirements of vehicle design architecture. These goals and targets should consider known unsafe use cases but should also aim at discovering unknown unsafe use cases. The different test environments should also be specified to match the validation strategy (ISO 21448 2022).
Several methods of the V&V of system performance, such as MIL, SIL, HIL, test track experiments and long-term endurance tests (real world tests) with the injection of potential triggering events, could be implemented in order to ensure the safety of intended functionalities (see the ‘Testing‘ and ‘Simulation Tools’ categories). According to ISO 21448 (2022), the ADF should be validated to ensure that it causes minimum risk, especially any unreasonable level of risk, in real-life use cases. Therefore, two different approaches could be applied as below (ISO 21448 2022); Minimise the SOTIF risks caused by known scenarios to an acceptable level by means of technical measures, such as function improvement, limitation of use, limitation of the performance of the intended functionality, etc., or minimise the SOTIF risks caused by unknown scenarios as much as possible through SOTIF V&V measures, such as endurance testing, test track of the ADF or industry best practices, etc. These two approaches together can significantly support the achievement of SOTIF safety goals.
Main Question
Is there a Verification and Validation (V&V) strategy to prove the compliance of SOTIF aspects?
Sub-Questions
- Does the V&V strategy make sure that the test goals and V&V targets (such as acceptance criteria) are sufficiently covered?
- Is there an appropriate testing environment that matches the validation strategy?
- Is the ADF performance verified in the event of hazardous events and foreseeable misuse by conducting appropriate testing (simulation (X in the loop), real world, test track and hybrid testing)?
- Is the ADF validated regarding the aspect that it does not cause any unreasonable level of risk in real-life use cases?
References
- ISO (2022) 21448: Road vehicles — Safety of the intended functionality. Available at:https://www.iso.org/standard/77490.html (Accessed: 18 October 2023)