ADDRESSING IN-VEHICLE COMPUTER BASED SYSTEM SAFETY RISKS

As new intelligent transportation systems (ITS) services become available, the complexity of in-vehicle systems required to utilize them will continue to grow. Even so, the market will force car manufacturers to keep prices down. The only way to resolve this conflict is to strive for a higher degree of system integration. The potential risk in doing this is that the couplings between functions tend to be unclear and unpredictable. A new holistic way of attacking this problem has been developed within the framework of the Swedish RTI program. The paradigms and methods created allow system designers to increase the understandability of complex systems as well as guarantee systems performance. This paper will discuss the potential safety risk of growing in-vehicle systems and define the concepts developed.