This white paper gives “state of the art” and results regarding Decision Hierarchy and Architectural Patterns for ADS (Autonomous Drive Systems), also known colloquially as “Autonomous Cars”. The white paper consists of excerpts from the final “state of the art” report and final result report in WP5 “Decision Hierarchy and Architectural Patterns” of the ESPLANADE project (Efficient and Safe Product Lines of Architectures eNabling Autonomous DrivE). The focus of the projects has been to support a safe implementation of self-driving vehicles and contribute to one of SAFER’s main research questions – how to verify and validate assisted and automated systems in cooperation. Qamcom was one several participants. The work was mainly financed by VINNOVA (Swedish Agency for Innovation) through the project ESPLANADE; which was run during 2016-2020.

Qamcom is now involved in a new research project, that started in January 2021: SALIENCE4CAV (Safety Lifecycle Enabling Continuous Deployment for Connected Automated Vehicles). This is a continuation of ESPLANADE. SALIENCE4CAV will continue the work on how to ensure safety and how to use existing safety standards, e.g. ISO26262. The focus will be to enable iterative development for safety-critical products, that is, development of products and enabling of upgrades much more often. Further topics include development of methods to use for the design and assurance of safety-critical automated driving systems (ADS) for connected automated vehicles (CAV), enabling the use of iterative development and continuous deployment for ADSs.