SOTIF – Safety Of The Intended Functionality – addresses hazards caused not by system failures but by the functional insufficiencies of the intended behaviour, such as sensor performance limits in adverse conditions. It complements ISO 26262, which covers hazards from malfunctions.
The standard for Functional Safety in the automotive is ISO 26262. Last version was released in 2018. A new version is being discussed and will be released in the near future.
SOTIF is the acronym of Safety of the Intended Functionality. Its goal is the same of Functional Safety: i.e., the protection of humans from harm and injuries. However, while the objective of Functional Safety is to prevent risks due, substantially, to HW failures or SW bugs in the programmable electronic pars of the system, SOTIF´s objective is to prevent that functional insufficiencies or deficiencies could lead to potentially hazardous situations.
SOTIF is regulated by international standard ISO/PAS 21448. Last version dates from June 2022.
The necessity to cover this specific aspect is becoming increasingly decisive to the Automotive field, especially now that development of self-driving cars is on the way.
Well, what is expected is that new release of ISO 26262 will contain finally an integration towards SOTIF. In the next posts we will investigate more in depth the interconnection between automotive (increasing) “intelligent systems”, Functional Safety and SOTIF.
