July 5, 2019—Emphasizing safety by design, 11 industry leaders across the automotive and automated driving technology spectrum published “Safety First for Automated Driving” (SaFAD), a non-binding organized framework for the development, testing and validation of safe automated passenger vehicles.
These 11 leaders — Aptiv, Audi, Baidu, BMW, Continental, Daimler, FCA US LLC, HERE, Infineon, Intel and Volkswagen — comprise a broad representation of the industry and have published, to date, the largest report on how to build, test and operate a safe automated vehicle.
For the first time, SaFAD offers automated vehicle (AV) developers and operators a system for clear traceability that proves AVs to be “safer than the average driver” through components such as cameras or steering systems.
It is also the first time presenting a summary of widely known safety-by-design and verification and validation methods of Level 3 and Level 4 automated driving as defined by the SAE.
The foundation of the SaFAD white paper is its 12 Guiding Principles, which are further refined into capabilities of the automated vehicle, from which safe-by-design elements are derived to support the capability and achieve the guiding principles.