China's heavy-truck lane-keeping draft adds a functional-safety document duty

The intelligent connected vehicle subcommittee of China’s automotive standardization committee opened comment on September 24 on a revision of GB/T 41796, the recommended national standard for lane keeping assistance. The draft carries plan number 20264478-T-339, replaces the 2022 edition, and renames the standard from commercial vehicles to heavy-duty vehicles. It applies to M2, M3, N2 and N3 category vehicles.

The substantive addition is documentary. Annex A, revised from the 2022 edition and normative, requires a manufacturer to hold documents setting out the functional concept, the functional safety concept, the safety measures and the development method. It splits them in two. One set is submitted to the testing body: a system description, a hazard analysis and risk assessment summary, a safety-measure description, vehicle-level and system-level safety-analysis summaries, and verification plans and results at both levels. A more detailed set is kept available for inspection. The manufacturer self-declares that what it submitted is consistent with the product as developed and traceable to it.

Annex B is new and specifies what that documentation has to contain. The system description must give model, manufacturer and software version number. Every unit and every other vehicle system the function relies on must be listed with hardware and software version numbers, and the transmission chains and signals between units must be described, including signal priority wherever priority affects function, performance or safety. The hazard summary must state an ASIL grade and a safety goal against each vehicle-level hazard.

The draft names GB/T 34590, China’s functional safety standard, as a normative reference. Drafting organizations include Dongfeng Commercial Vehicle, Sinotruk, CATARC, ZF’s Qingdao commercial vehicle company, Daimler’s China commercial vehicle arm, Scania’s Jiangsu research company and Huawei’s Yinwang unit.