VV Methods Safety Assurance Position Paper

Abstract

Developing an Automated Driving System (ADS) is a complex task involving many stakeholders from different domains. Taking up this challenge, the VV Methods project (VVM) (https://www.vvm-projekt.de/en/) has developed a general methodology that is proposed as a new common basis to develop and ensure the safety of future Automated Driving Systems (ADS). The methodology enables the analysis, monitoring and control of the risk resulting from operating the ADS in its desired Operational Domain for driver, passengers and other traffic participants during the development to ensure that the result maintains an acceptable level of risk. The methodological framework proposed by VVM also integrates key aspects needed to provide evidence of this in a safety case. The framework is explicitly designed for industrial application. It builds on the PEGASUS method (https://www.pegasusprojekt.de/en/) for scenario-based testing and addresses the particular challenges of operating an ADS in and coping with the complexity of urban traffic. It combines argumentation concepts (pink) establishing the coverage of the operational design domain (ODD) and the operational domain (OD) by scenarios with an assurance framework defining the processes and means to develop the ADS for that ODD within the OD. While the argumentation concepts are not fully formalized, the assurance framework is based on formal formats and toolbased procedures, in particular for verification and validation tasks, that can be directly integrated into industrial practice. This work was supported within the PEGASUS Family project “VVMethods” by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action. VVM is a successor to the original PEGASUS project “Projekt zur Etablierung von generell akzeptierten Gütekriterien, Werkzeugen und Methoden sowie Szenarien und Situationen zur Freigabe hochautomatisierter Fahrfunktionen”.