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In everyday life, we rely on countless machines in our office, shopping centers, and even the machines in our homes. When these machines malfunction, they can lead to safety hazards. That’s why they are designed with functional safety in mind: to ensure that if something goes wrong, the machine either fails safely or continues operating in a safe state. Here are a few examples of functional safety we encounter every day: Functional Safety of an Elevator system Elevators are o

Powertrain in Electric Vehicles In this example, we’ll look at how functional safety applies to the powertrain system of an electric vehicle (EV), providing a practical view of how ISO 26262 can be implemented. In an EV, the High voltage battery pack supplies electrical power to the electric motor when the driver requests movement through the accelerator pedal. As the driver presses the pedal, sensors detect its position and send this information to a centralized computer, wh

What is ISO 26262? ISO 26262 is an international standard for the functional safety of electrical and electronic (E/E) systems in road vehicles. It ensures that E/E systems in road vehicle - cars, trucks, and motorcycles remain safe even when faults occur. The standard defines a risk-based approach using Automotive Safety Integrity Levels (ASILs) to classify hazards, evaluate the risk of hazards, and methods to mitigate risks - from concept and design to production, operation

Challenges while performing an FMEA While the FMEA is a powerful technique to identify gaps in design, engineers frequently encounter challenges during its creation. Some of these challenges include  spending too much time creating an FMEA form sheet from an architecture, often extending to a few weeks​;  spending too much time spent in repetitive tasks like filling out effects, cause and mitigation for similar failure modes;  establishing consistency in severity, occurrence

7-step FMEA process   The AIAG & VDA FMEA handbook recommends a 7-step process to create FMEA, which is illustrated in the figure below.    Figure 1: Overview of the AIAG & VDA FMEA process   Step 1 – Planning and Preparation  involves defining the purpose of performing the FMEA, assembling a cross-functional team, selecting appropriate tools, establishing a timeline, and setting guidelines for the analysis. The first task is to determine the type of FMEA to be conducted, whe

Understanding FMEA (Failure Mode Effect Analyses): The Cornerstone of Automotive Safety Analysis   In the automotive industry, safety is paramount. Every sensor, processor, actuator, and software must work safely to ensure that vehicles operate safely under all conditions. Among the many processes that engineers use to achieve this, the FMEA stands out as one of the most widely adopted and useful methods for identifying and mitigating risk.  FMEA background   The Failure Mode

How to choose functional safety standards for a product?   To ensure that a product is free from unreasonable safety-related risks, it is recommended to develop it in compliance with state-of-the-art safety standards. However, with numerous standards available, adhering to all of them is neither practical nor necessary. Instead, it is important to identify and adopt the most relevant standards based on the product’s intended application.  The applicable functional safety stan