On the Impact of the Second Edition of the ISO 26262 on Model-Based Development of Safety-Related Systems

The release of the ISO 26262 in November 2011 was a major milestone for the safeguarding of safety-related systems that include one or more electrical and / or electronic (E/E) systems and that are installed in series production passenger cars. Although no specific requirements exist for a model-based software development process, ISO 26262 compiles general requirements and recommendations that need to be applied to model-based development.

The second edition of the ISO 26262 has been distributed for review with a final publication scheduled for 2018. This revised edition not only integrates the experiences of the last few years but also extends the overall scope of safety-related systems. In order to determine the necessary adaptions for already existing software development processes, a detailed analysis of this revision is necessary. In this work, we focus on an analysis and the impact on model-based software development of safety-related systems. First, it is important to point out the main questions that need to be considered for this kind of gap analysis. Based on this gap analysis the main differences on requirements and in particular, methods for model-based development will be elaborated.