Automotive Software Devs Concerned About Safety, Quality & Security

There are ongoing concerns with software safety and quality, the growing effects of connected vehicles on development, and the continuing focus on compliance according to a study by Perforce Software.

The survey found that automotive software developers’ top three leading concerns are safety (40%), quality (20%), and security (14%).

For those most concerned with safety, 49% say their biggest concern is how difficult it can be to adhere to every requirement of the ISO 26262 safety standard.

“ISO 26262 is a complex functional safety standard and complying with it can be a time-consuming endeavor without the right tools,” added Bellairs.

Connected and autonomous vehicle development is also impacting development teams. Most (74%) of teams are working on connected components to a degree. 70% are working on designs impacted by autonomous vehicles.

“Connected and autonomous vehicles are the future of the industry,” said Bellairs. “And, safety and security will remain the top concerns for these teams.”

The survey found that 72% use a coding standard to ensure safe, secure, and reliable code — with 53% using MISRA. 66% of them use a static code analyzer to aid in compliance.

“Static analyzers are the best way to enforce coding standards and deliver conformant code,” said Bellairs.

The results of the survey are available in the 2019 State of Automotive Software Development Survey Results.

Collaborating across teams is difficult, and distributed teams makes it more complicated. Plus, it gets challenging to manage multiple variants of all the technology components involved — hardware and software.