The First in the Global Lidar Industry: Hesai Obtained ISO 21448 Intended Functional Safety Process Certification

PALO ALTO, Calif., Sept. 9, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Hesai Technology, a global leader in the lidar industry, has successfully passed a rigorous audit by TÜV SÜD and obtained the ISO 21448 Safety of the Intended Functionality (SOTIF) certification based on ISO 26262 functional safety and a QMS framework. This makes Hesai the first in the global lidar industry to receive this certification. It highlights Hesai's advanced process system for safety and its integration of best practices into research and development.

Since 2021, Hesai has focused on creating a "3-in-1" safety system that combines functional safety, SOTIF, and cybersecurity within its lidar product design. As the first company in the industry to achieve certifications in ISO 26262, ISO/SAE 21434, and ISO 21448, Hesai's "safety triangle" guarantees precise and reliable data input for intelligent driving.

Safety is the foundation of intelligent driving, and as autonomous driving technology advances, perception hardware like lidar faces increasingly stringent safety requirements. Lidar's role as a key sensor makes it vital to overall vehicle safety. SOTIF for lidar includes analyzing functional limitations, particularly under conditions like bad weather, vibrations, and electromagnetic interference. Hesai continuously optimizes lidar design to mitigate these factors, ensuring safety in complex environments.

ISO 21448:2022, "Road vehicles - Safety of the Intended Functionality," is the first SOTIF standard established by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The standard ensures that various operational scenarios are considered during design and operation, mitigating potential safety risks from system performance limitations or human error.

By studying relevant standards, regulations, and best practices, Hesai has built a scenario library dimension table for testing perception features driven by lidar data. This table comprehensively covers seven core categories, including vehicle operating scenarios, environmental conditions, and sensor states, subdivided into hundreds of specific scenarios, evaluating lidar performance from all angles and reducing the likelihood of unknown hazardous states. This enables the system to remain safe in a broader range of scenarios.

For instance, Hesai's proprietary active interference rejection technology independently encodes each laser pulse, effectively isolating interference from external lidar signals. Additionally, Hesai's dirt diagnosis feature identifies and reports dirt on the lidar's window, converting dirt into actionable data for intelligent driving systems, which enhances lidar safety and stability in practical applications.

Another breakthrough from Hesai is the world's first Intelligent Point Cloud Engine (IPE), which marks and filters out more than 99.9% of environmental noise, such as rain, fog, vehicle exhaust, and dust, in real-time. This technology significantly reduces misidentifications and false triggers, making lidar more stable in adverse conditions.

Hesai's SOTIF certification, based on ISO 26262 functional safety and a QMS framework, enhances intelligent driving by clarifying system limitations caused by interference. This approach enhances the safety of the intelligent driving system, significantly expands the operational design domain, reduces the need for takeovers, and improves both user safety and driving experience.