Electronics has meanwhile become an integral component of safety-related systems located in vehicles or the road side. Particularly in motor vehicles, the overall safety of vehicle sub-systems such as steering, brakes, speed control, seat adjustment etc. is influenced by actively intervening in mechanical hydraulic and pneumatic systems via actuators and other devices. Certain safety requirements must be fulfilled to ensure that electronics does not represent a safety risk. Through the execution of a preliminary hazard analysis an identification of hazardous situations is possible. To graduate these hazardous situations we have 5 controllability categories from uncontrollable to nuisance only, which depends immediately on 5 safety integrity levels. Depending on the safety integrity level, special measures are to be used. There are two main groups of measures, one is measures to avoid faults and on the other hand measures to control faults. It is necessary to use measures from both groups. If this requirement profile is taken into account during development, statutory requirements on safety should be considered as having been fulfilled.
