Efficient safety analysis of automotive software systems

Software has rapidly gained importance as a driver for innovation in automobiles. Since many safety-related automotive systems make intensive use of software, the upcoming ISO 26262 poses several requirements addressing software development, including safety analyses for software. For software, however, safety analysis techniques are seldom applied in practice. It is unclear how to apply them and in many cases even their usefulness in general is questioned. This article illustrates why software safety analyses are indispensable, how they can be efficiently applied to complex systems, and how they relate to existing software quality assurance techniques and system safety analyses.