The rapid growth of the automotive industry in China has spurred demand for more sophisticated and more mature automotive technologies. An increasing number of OEMs, for example, are starting to require their suppliers to certify products to the ISO 26262 functional safety standard.
KOSTAL Asia R&D Center, a subsidiary of KOSTAL Group, recently became the first company in China to obtain ISO 26262 Automotive Safety Integrity Level (ASIL) D certification for a locally developed product. Though focused on R&D, the center has comprehensive product development capabilities and is responsible for selecting and tailoring tools and methods based on local customers’ requirements. KOSTAL achieved the highest level of functional safety certification under ISO 26262 for its electronic steering column lock (ESCL) module. The center’s engineers designed, developed, and tested part of the ESCL application software using Model-Based Design and with support from MathWorks engineers.
“MathWorks engineers helped us make the transition to a development process that supports ISO 26262 certification one step at a time,” says Cheng Hui, platform and process manager at KOSTAL Asia R&D Center. “Model-Based Design with MATLAB and Simulink enabled us to speed development by verifying our design early and reducing the manual work associated with the verification, validation, and reporting tasks needed for certification.”