Introducing the detailed semantic interface description to support a modular safety approval of automated vehicles – S²I²

Abstract

The concept of a modular safety approval for automated vehicles dispenses with tests on vehicle or system level. Individually approved modules can be updated and reused without requiring new safety approvals. Similar to a system’s operational design domain description, an environmental description is required for a safety approval on module level. This paper presents how the environment of a module can be described at module interfaces. Uncertainty about other modules’ behaviour, dependencies between modules, and impacts of their outputs on the system behaviour are key reasons for missing specifications or tests of existing methods, leading to an erroneous approval of modules. To reduce uncertainties, we expand the state-of-the-art syntactical and semantic interface description and additionally describe dependencies to other modules’ behaviour or conditions and impacts of their outputs. The resulting detailed semantic interface description is categorised into syntax, semantics, influencing factors, and impacts. The novel description structure is a condensed way to consider the behaviour and its impacts on other modules in module development and testing. The description fundamentally supports the modular safety approval by identifying stimuli usually only seen during integration.

Keywords:

• Safety approval
• validation
• automated driving
• autonomous vehicles
• modularity
• interface
• UNICARagil

Acknowledgement

This research is accomplished within the project ‘UNICARagil’ (FKZ 16EMO0286).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

All data analysed during this study are included in the Appendix of this published article.

Additional information

Funding

We acknowledge the financial support for the projects by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany (BMBF) based on a decision of the Deutsche Bundestag.

Notes on contributors

Björn Klamann

Björn Klamann finished his Master of Science Degree in Mechanical and Process Engineering at Technical University of Darmstadt. Since 2018 he is a research assistant at the Institute of Automotive Engineering at Technical University of Darmstadt. In his main research topic, the safety of automated vehicles, he investigates the approach of a modular safety approval.

Hermann Winner

Hermann Winner began working at Robert Bosch GmbH in 1987, after receiving his PhD in physics, focusing on the predevelopment of ‘by-wire’ technology and Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC). Beginning in 1995, he led the series development of ACC up to the start of production. Since 2002, he has been pursuing the research of systems engineering topics for driver assistance systems and automated driving as Professor of Automotive Engineering at the Technical University of Darmstadt. He discovered the ‘approval trap’ of autonomous driving, the still unsolved challenge to validate safety of autonomous driving before market introduction.