PALO ALTO, Calif., April 24, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Hesai Technology announces it has obtained ISO 26262 ASIL B - Performance Level D Functional Safety Standard for the short-range lidar QT128, which is designed for blind spot coverage on autonomous taxis, trucks, and industrial applications.

Xiang Shaoqing, CTO of Hesai Technology, said: "QT128 received the certification for its functional safety and reliability. This certification is significant for the autonomous driving system to achieve higher-level functions, pass higher level safety standards, and accelerate mass production. As a global leader in the lidar industry, Hesai will continue improving our products, establishing higher standard for safety system, and providing safe and reliable services for OEMs."

Lu Binsi, Director of the SGS Automotive Services Department, said: "Lidar has become an indispensable environmental perception sensor for its advantages such as the accurate acquisition of the target's 3D information, high resolution, strong interference-rejection ability, long detection range, and nearly all-weather operation. Enterprises can continuously improve their core product advantage through technological innovation and lidar upgrades. In the future, SGS will continue to help autonomous driving, new energy, and automotive chip enterprises to establish development processes that align with international standards, providing drivers and passengers with a safer riding experience."

As a leader in the global lidar market, Hesai has continued to invest and improve product system security capabilities. Obtaining this certificate means that Hesai has a high-quality product development process system and can provide safer and more reliable automotive-grade lidar products for the world's top automakers. It also means that Pandar128 and QT128, automotive-grade lidar solutions for the L4 market, can support vehicles to meet the relevant requirements of ASIL D, the highest functional safety level for autonomous driving.

As the "eyes" of a smart car, lidar is the first link in the intelligent driving system, affecting both decision-making and execution of the system. No matter how sophisticated the electronic components are, there are always certain risks of failure. Functional safety can identify and assess safety risks through its complete system. During design, production, after-sales and other stages, functional safety can reduce safety risks potentially caused by abnormal electronic components to an extremely low and controllable range.

Lidar certified by functional safety can detect potential risks in electrical/electronic systems, sending an alarm to the intelligent driving system and initiating protection. For example, it can correct the device, provide mitigation measures, or exit autonomous/assisted driving states to minimize damage.

ISO 26262 is recognized as the world's most authoritative automotive functional safety standard. It covers the entire product life cycle, including functional safety management, concept phase, system phase, hardware development, software development, production operation, support process, safety analysis, and other stages.

On March 15, 2023, Hesai received the digital certificate and the audit report from SGS in Germany. Hesai started preparations for this certification at the beginning of 2022. Following the ISO 26262 standard for product development and design, Hesai's R&D team conducted comprehensive safety analysis of every internal module, forming thousands of failure analysis reports. Dozens of safety mechanisms were designed and verified by fault injection tests. After countless iterations over a year, QT128 finally met the requirements of ISO 26262 ASIL B. 

Quality and Safety: Necessities for Automotive-Grade Products

Because of its ability to accurately perceive 3D space, lidar can empower automakers to create a safer and more comfortable ADAS driving experience. Building a complete lidar product safety system is the prerequisite for the mass production of automotive-grade products, which requires a comprehensive understanding of the entire product development process, and series of verifications.

Among the safety requirements related to automotive electronic and electrical components, functional safety, safety of the intended function (SOTIF), and cybersecurity are often indispensable. It is necessary to systematically build multiple security systems in the early stages of lidar product development. Integrating the three security systems is far more difficult than succeeding in just one of them.

As an emerging automotive component, lidar has just began to be applied on a large scale last year, and only a few lidar manufacturers have achieved mass production and delivery. Regarding functional safety, most lidar manufacturers have not put it into practice. For a complex and sophisticated electronic system like lidar, enterprises need to invest a lot of resources into analysis, which in turn increases the cost of functional safety research.

As a leader in the global lidar market, Hesai already took action a few years ago, and has obtained a series of international authoritative certifications in quality systems, functional safety, information security, and software quality:

• April 2020, Hesai obtained the ISO 9001 certification for the Quality Management System
• March 2021, Hesai obtained the IATF16949 certification for the Automotive Quality Management System
• September 2021, Hesai's Pandar128 obtained ISO 26262 ASIL B Functional Safety Certification
• May 2022, Hesai obtained ISO/IEC 27001 certification for Information Security Management System
• December 2022, Hesai obtained ASPICE Level 2 certification for Automotive Software Process Improvement and Capacity Determination
• February 2023, Hesai was certified by TISAX (Trusted Information Security Assessment Exchange) with the highest protection level AL3

Hesai Leads the Industry in Lidar Standard Researching and Drafting Efforts

Besides quality and safety, Hesai has long been a leader in promoting the implementation of relevant industry standards. Hesai's experts lead the ISO Automotive Lidar Working Group and initiated the pre-research work on the ISO/PWI 13228 Test Method for Automotive Lidar standards. Hesai created the UL4700 proposal in February 2020 and incorporated it into the American National Standards. Hesai has also participated in the discussion, update, and formulation of the IEC 60825 Optical Radiation Safety Standards with authoritative organizations including Bosch and Apple.

As of December 31, 2022, Hesai has delivered over 100,000 lidars, becoming the world's first lidar company to reach this milestone. While promoting product iteration and production capacity, Hesai will continue to strengthen its security system as the backbone of lidar mass production and delivery.

About SGS

SGS is an internationally recognized testing, inspection, and certification body, the benchmark for quality and integrity. SGS Global Automotive Safety Technology Center can provide one-stop solutions for OEMs and parts suppliers. Its main business includes vehicles, automotive-grade chips, functional safety of semiconductors, ASPICE, SOTIF, and information security. It provides technical training, consulting, technical services, audit certification, and other services. Martin Schmidt, head of the Global Technology Center, is one of the initiators and drafters of ISO 26262. SGS has more than 80 automotive functional safety experts and has issued more than 780 ISO 26262 functional safety and information security certification certificates to global customers.