{"id":19451,"date":"2024-12-10T06:00:04","date_gmt":"2024-12-10T06:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sonatus.com\/?p=19451"},"modified":"2024-12-18T21:53:58","modified_gmt":"2024-12-18T21:53:58","slug":"sonatus-automator-ai-safety-module-completes-functional-safety-certification-journey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sonatus.com\/fr\/blog\/sonatus-automator-ai-safety-module-completes-functional-safety-certification-journey\/","title":{"rendered":"Sonatus Automator AI Safety Module Completes Functional Safety Certification Journey"},"content":{"rendered":"

The automotive landscape continues to evolve, with constant innovation driving the future of mobility. Two key players in this space, Sonatus, and LHP Engineering Solutions, are excited to announce that, through their strategic partnership, the safety module for Sonatus Automator AI, the <\/span>Automator Safety Interlock (ASI), is certified by UL Solutions to ISO 26262, achieving ASIL-D capability<\/span><\/a> (automotive safety integrity, Level D). This certification represents the pinnacle of safety assurance in automotive engineering, validating our commitment to delivering cutting-edge, safety-compliant software solutions. ISO 26262, which addresses <\/span>the functional safety requirements for a vehicle’s electrical and electronics systems,<\/span> is the global standard for automotive safety. Achieving ASIL-D (the highest safety integrity level) compliance of ISO 26262 provides original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and their suppliers with confidence that our products meet the industry safety standards required in today\u2019s interconnected vehicle architectures and ensure that the Automator AI platform is fully enabled for safety-critical use cases.<\/span><\/p>\n

Genesis of a powerful partnership: a conceptual beginning<\/b><\/p>\n

The partnership between Sonatus and LHP began in early 2023 as a response to a growing challenge: the increasing complexity of software-defined vehicles (SDVs) and their potential safety implications. After developing Sonatus Automator AI, its powerful in-vehicle software orchestration platform, Sonatus recognized the need for functional safety compliance to allow its technology to be used in a broader range of situations in highly interconnected systems, such as those involving safety criticality. As an orchestration framework designed to enhance vehicle quality and driving, Sonatus Automator AI empowers OEMs to create and deploy complex event-triggered workflow recipes, similar to home automation, in which actions are triggered based on certain conditions or events. These recipes allow for introducing new features, executing tests, and performing real-time diagnostic routines on vehicles. The framework supports a flexible range of triggers\u2014including CAN and Ethernet signals, ECU events, and geolocation \u2014 facilitating the creation of sophisticated multistage workflows that can be used to target specific vehicles or conditions.<\/span>\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Opening the Automator AI platform up to more participants in the vehicle network greatly enhances possibilities for automation but requires the proper handling of potentially safety-critical use cases. For example, optimizing vehicle dynamics system parameters like torque vectoring or changing the drive mode configuration while the vehicle is moving could pose risks to the driver. Collaboration with LHP proved invaluable in identifying such safety concerns and implementing functional safety mechanisms with customer-specific use case configuration options in mind within ASI. LHP\u2019s industry expertise was crucial to establishing the right assumptions needed to ensure smooth integration of the system with OEMs.<\/span><\/p>\n

During the functional safety concept phase, Sonatus approached LHP Engineering to begin the process of aligning the platform\u2019s capabilities with automotive safety standards. LHP delivered a comprehensive functional safety evaluation package that included critical safety training for Sonatus managers and engineers and conducted a gap analysis on Sonatus organizational processes to ensure compliance with ISO 26262.<\/span><\/p>\n

This phase also included essential steps like<\/span> item definition and hazard and risk assessment (HARA). The key challenge was managing out-of-context development in an evolving ecosystem where software-defined vehicle features are highly dynamic, but safety standards remain static and rigid. These efforts eventually led to the creation of the Sonatus ASI as a guardrail for the vast range of action requests.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Developed as a safety element out of context (SEooC), ASI software acts as a critical operational safety mechanism within the system. ASI independently monitors and validates all action requests as new features are developed and deployed. It verifies that each request aligns with predefined safety conditions and ensures that only authorized and safe operations are permitted. Should an unsafe action be detected, ASI intervenes to guide the system to a predetermined safe state, ensuring vehicle safety is never compromised. See Figure 1.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Figure 1. ASI enables the safe configuration of a multitude of controls (only a small subset is visualized here) to enhance automotive solutions, such as vehicle personalization or software-defined components.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Benefits of Sonatus ASI\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

The ASI software integrates effectively into a POSIX-based system while remaining\u00a0 hardware agnostic. <\/span>POSIX defines system and user-level <\/span>application programming interfaces<\/span><\/a> (APIs), along with command line <\/span>shells<\/span><\/a> and utility interfaces, for software compatibility (portability) with various operating systems.<\/span> Additionally, the structure of ASI is supported by a complementary safety manual, ensuring comprehensive compliance with automotive safety standards.<\/span><\/p>\n

The ASI architecture is centered around several critical software functions that collectively ensure reliable operation and adherence to safety standards. See Figure 2.<\/span><\/p>\n