In September 2021, Hesai's Pandar128 LiDAR sensor successfully received the ISO 26262 ASIL B functional safety product certification from SGS-TÜV, a world-renowned inspection, appraisal, testing, and certification organization. On September 16, the SGS team officially issued a certificate to Hesai. 

As confirmed by SGS, Hesai Pandar128 becomes the world's first LiDAR to achieve ISO 26262 ASIL B functional safety certification. 

Obtaining ASIL B functional safety certification means that Pandar128's functional safety architecture, design implementation, and safety coverage have reached the globally recognized automotive functional safety standard ISO 26262 ASIL B level requirements, proving that Pandar128 can provide safe LiDAR environment perception data to global car manufacturers and tier-one suppliers. It is of great significance for autonomous driving systems to pass high-level safety assessments promptly, accelerating product safety introduction and the process of mass production. 

28 Months of Hard Work for the Win 
With the rise of autonomous vehicles and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), automakers and auto-driving companies have put forward more stringent requirements on the safety of key components. As the "eyes" of car perception, LiDAR sensors play an important role in future all-weather autonomous driving safety applications. ISO 26262 is the most authoritative automotive functional safety standard in the world, covering 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 links. 

The certified Pandar128 integrates 128 laser channels of transmission and reception, upper and lower dual main control, high-speed signal analysis, wireless power supply, wireless communication, active luminescence detection, active reception detection, and other modules. The team has overcome many technical and engineering difficulties and successfully built a complete security mechanism to achieve standard security coverage.  

Hesai's R&D team initiated the functional safety work 16 months before the official release of Pandar128, in the first half of 2019 conducting nearly 10,000 systematic failure analysis, random hardware failure analysis, and a large number of fault injection tests for each unit of the product. After the completion of safety work, dozens of corresponding safety measures were designed, resulting in a total of more than 300 work products. After 28 months of iterations, the current version of Pandar128 has a comprehensive fault diagnosis system, with a diagnosis coverage rate of over 96%. The fault diagnosis and response time is less than or equal to 100 ms, ensuring Pandar128 meets the requirement of ISO 26262 ASIL B level in terms of avoiding the risk of various failures. 

Hesai Technology's rigorous R&D, strict quality control management system, and reliable product quality set a strong foundation for passing the certification. During the audit and certification process, the SGS expert team inspected all aspects of Hesai's safety management, system development, software and hardware development, and support processes by strict standards. After professional evaluations, Hesai Pandar128 was awarded ISO 26262 ASIL B functional safety product certification. 

Accelerating the Implementation of Autonomous Vehicles  

Pandar128 successfully passing the functional safety product certification indicates that Hesai Technology has complete ISO 26262 functional safety analysis, design, development, and verification capabilities, and can provide safer product services in more complex and diverse scenarios. 

As the key sensor of automatic vehicles and ADAS, LiDAR's functional safety is deeply connected with the overall system safety of the car. Pandar128's ASIL B product certification means that when customers use LiDARs with the same structure as Pandar128 to build automotive autopilot or ADAS, it not only enables the car to obtain excellent perception performance but also serves as a key component to assist the entire automatic vehicles or ADAS to meet higher safety standards, accelerating the safe implementation of related functions. 

Leading the Industry Standards 
Dedicated to delivering best-in-class products in the industry, Hesai always takes emphasis on the implementation of production processes and system construction. During 2021, Hesai has successively obtained the IATF16949 certificate and the ISO 26262:2018 functional safety ASIL B product certificate, which has achieved significant marks. 

Hesai has also been a pioneer who continues to promote the standardization of the LiDAR industry. As the initiator, Hesai is currently advancing the UL4700 Standard for Safety for LiDAR and LiDAR Systems (other participants include: Intel, Bosch, Continental, etc.); In terms of human eye safety, Hesai and T?V Rheinland jointly released the "Laser Product Eye Safety White Paper" in 2019, which promoted the standardization of laser safety understanding of LiDAR products. 

In the future, Hesai Technology will continue to make efforts in product functional safety, expected functional safety, network safety, human eye safety, and more, to establish a high-standard safety system for a full range of products, and output high-quality laser sensors to industries such as automobiles and mobile robots. 

About SGS Global Functional Safety Technology Center 

SGS is an internationally recognized inspection, appraisal, testing, and certification organization, and a benchmark for quality and integrity. The SGS Global Functional Safety Technology Center is an automotive functional safety training, consulting, and certification organization authorized by DAkkS in Germany. It is a functional safety partner of many well-known car companies and component suppliers at home and abroad. Martin Schmidt, the head of the technical center, is the initiator and drafter of ISO 26262. At present, SGS has more than 80 automotive functional safety experts and has issued more than 340 ISO 26262 functional safety certification certificates to customers around the world.