Functional Safety
Ensuring AI systems operate safely under all conditions, especially in industries like automotive or healthcare, often via redundancy and checks.
Definition
Involves designing systems to detect, tolerate, and recover from hardware/software faults without causing harm. Functional-safety standards (ISO 26262, IEC 61508) require hazard analyses, fail-safe mechanisms, redundancy, formal verification of safety requirements, and safety-life-cycle documentation. Governance ensures safety integrity levels (SIL) are assigned and maintained throughout development and operation.
Real-World Example
An autonomous-vehicle OEM builds redundant perception stacks (LiDAR + radar + cameras). Each sensor fusion pipeline runs independently, and a safety monitor cross-checks outputs. If discrepancies occur, the vehicle enters a safe-stop mode. All safety activities and tests are documented per ISO 26262 to achieve ASIL-D certification.
.svg)
