SUNRISE - A Harmonised Safety Assurance Framework For Connected, Automated Mobility Systems

2026-01-0060

4/7/2026

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Safety assurance of Cooperative, Connected, and Automated Mobility (CCAM) systems is a crucial factor for their successful adoption in society, yet it remains a significant challenge. The SUNRISE project has consolidated previous and on-going efforts, and developed a harmonised Safety Assurance Framework (SAF) designed to operationalise the UNECE New Assessment/Test Method (NATM), targeting a wide range of stakeholders including (but not limited to) certifiers, regulators, manufacturers, suppliers, researchers, and assessors. It incorporates a scenario-based approach, underpinned by the system’s Operational Design Domain (ODD) and behaviour for safety assessment. In line with NATM, the SAF consists of multiple pillars: the Audit of manufacturer processes and Safety Management Systems, In-Service Monitoring and Reporting (ISMR) to ensure continued safety during deployment, and Performance Assurance to generate and evaluate safety evidence pre-deployment. While all pillars are integral, this paper concentrates on the Performance Assurance pillar, which integrates three interlinked blocks: Scenario, Environment, and Safety Argument. The Scenario block covers the creation, the formatting, and the storage of logical and concrete scenarios. The Environment block contains an ODD and behaviour based scenario query and retrieval, scenario parameter concretisation, test environment allocation, and test execution. The Safety Argument block contains test evaluation, coverage analysis, safety case formulation, and evaluation decision outcome. Within the SUNRISE project, the SAF has been demonstrated across multiple use cases (various ODDs, systems, and test environment), and several ongoing/ future international collaborative projects are building on top of the SUNRISE SAF and applying it to an even wider set of use cases.
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Zhang, X., Khastgir, S., de Vries, S., Hillbrand, B., et al., "SUNRISE - A Harmonised Safety Assurance Framework For Connected, Automated Mobility Systems," WCX SAE World Congress Experience, Detroit, Michigan, United States, April 14, 2026, https://doi.org/10.4271/2026-01-0060.
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Published
Apr 07
Product Code
2026-01-0060
Content Type
Technical Paper
Language
English