10 Steps to ISO26262-compliant Model-based Software Components

Model-based software development is a well-established software development process and recognized by ISO26262 [1] as allowing for highly consistent and efficient development. Nevertheless, enhancing a model-based development process in such a way that it is compliant with the ISO26262 safety standard is a challenging task. To achieve ISO26262 compliance, the development team of a safety-related software project faces a multitude of additional requirements for the development process without a corresponding increase of the project budget to fulfill them. The fact that many of the requirements of ISO26262 are defined in a very generic way such that an interpretation is required further hampers their implementation.

We propose a 10-step strategy to achieve an ISO26262 compliant model-based software development process. This strategy relates ISO26262 requirements with state-of-the art methods and approaches currently used for model-based software development. It is based on a prioritization of the requirements of ISO26262 with regard to their impact on the quality of the software. Consequently, our approach applies the project budget optimally for both: addressing possible gaps in terms of ISO26262 compliance as well as improving the quality of the developed software.