Safety Assessment of Driver Assistance Systems

This paper reviews issues in and procedures for the safety evaluation of in-vehicle AdvancedDriver Assistance Systems. Contrasts are drawn between the two main areas of driverassistance systems — on the one hand information systems which interact with the driverand on the other hand intervening systems which interact directly with the vehicle.Navigation systems are typical of the former category and adaptive cruise control of thelatter. It is argued that, for information systems it is possible to develop a “generic” safetyassessment procedure, with a single generic test. A contrast is drawn with In the area ofintervening systems (driver warning and vehicle control systems), where no such genericevaluation by means of a single test is possible. Such systems differ widely in their purpose,in their intended operating environment, in their functionality and in their operatingenvelope. The authors propose a structured procedural approach for the safety assessmentof intervening systems.