Towards a risk-based approach for the design of highly resilient future vehicles

Current technological trends in transportation are towards increasing levels of automation, and ultimately to fully autonomous operation, as well as greater wireless connectivity. Although cars are among the best known examples, similar trends are also found in hazardous industrial environments, as well as in the marine and aerospace sectors. However, as the role of the driver/operator is progressively removed from vehicle control, the electronic systems that replace the human inputs will need to provide extremely high levels of dependability in order to ensure the public acceptability of these technologies. Thus, the electronic systems of future vehicles, as well as the intelligent transport systems that they interact with, will need to be designed to ensure a high degree of resilience to a wide range of threats. This paper outlines the elements of a unified risk-based approach to support the development of future vehicles that are highly resilient to environmental and criminal threats, thus ensuring acceptable levels of functional safety, safety of the intended functionality, cyber security and mission-critical functionality.