The European Commission has released draft regulation that outlines the legal requirements to obtain the type-approval for CAV operation on public roads. This requires the Safety Case documentation to be approved by a government-appointed regulatory authority in order to attain type-approval.

It is based on principles of candour, blame-free safety culture and open collaboration between parties. Safety is never assured, but it can be fostered. In this setting, even if an accident occurs, a demonstration of full commitment to safety is sufficient for a Due Diligence Defence – the only legal route of protecting company’s interest in the event of bad luck. However, leaders, that thwart the safety process may expect criminal liability. The architecture of the legal system resembles nuclear industry regulations, from which we draw our know-how.

Safety Case: Hardware
The core of the Safety Case is an overview of the hardware architecture of the ADS (Automated Driving System) and its integration with the vehicle. It involves sensors, perception, planning and actuation systems, but also the power supply, off-board connections, and auxiliaries – this serves to estimate the system-level failure frequency, as well as identify possible CCF (Common Cause Failures – i.e. a damaged power cable can disable multiple sensors at once).

Safety Case: Software
Moving on to software, the ADS must pass a ‘drivers license test for robots’, which consists of multiple road scenarios, based on the claimed ODD (Operational Design Domain), which is what the manufacturer claims their AV is capable of. The scenarios are divided into the following classes: nominal, critical and failure. Interestingly, the list of scenarios is intended to keep changing and growing, as the ADS must be always ready to take on a novel scenario at no notice – just like on the roads.

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