Red Hat secures safety certification for vehicle OS

Red Hat has achieved functional safety certification for its Red Hat In-Vehicle Operating System, which is scheduled for general availability in the third quarter of 2025.

The operating system is now certified as a Safety Element out-of-Context (SEooC) against the ISO 26262 Edition 2, 2018- Level ASIL-B standard, affirming its compliance with rigorous automotive risk management and safety requirements for in-vehicle, operator-critical computer systems.

Red Hat has stated its intention to facilitate the automotive industry's transition to software-defined vehicles, advocating for an open source and cloud-native approach to automotive system development. This model supports software creation in the cloud, followed by virtual simulation and deployment on physical hardware without the need to rewrite code.

The company began pursuing the goal of delivering the first continuously certified Linux platform for vehicles in 2021. Since then, it has worked closely with exida, a firm specialising in functional safety and cybersecurity certification, to meet the comprehensive demands of ISO 26262 and other functional safety standards.

The Red Hat In-Vehicle Operating System is built upon the Red Hat Enterprise Linux platform and has been optimised for automotive requirements, including improved boot times, real-time performance, and robust freedom from interference (FFI) protocols. This architecture is intended to ensure that non-safety-critical applications such as infotainment and GPS cannot disrupt essential safety functions. The platform is targeted for use in advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS), digital cockpits, body control, telematics, infotainment, and the integration of artificial intelligence models within vehicles.

To supplement the platform, Red Hat will provide a Safety Guidance document, including Assumptions of Use (AoUs) and related safety artefacts. The offering will also include a software development kit (SDK) that draws on Red Hat's suite of hybrid cloud and application development tools, which aims to simplify the translation of cloud-based innovation to in-vehicle applications.

"Bringing Red Hat In-Vehicle Operating System to market sets an inflection point for the automotive industry's shift toward software-defined vehicles. Built on the proven backbone of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the platform enables automakers to accelerate innovation, enhance safety and strengthen system security while embracing an open source approach to drive greater flexibility and collaboration. We're excited to help transform the driving experience by empowering the automotive ecosystem with a more scalable, reliable and open platform," Francis Chow, Vice President and General Manager for In-Vehicle Operating System and Edge at Red Hat, said.

Red Hat is collaborating with several companies in the automotive silicon hardware industry, including Arm, Intel, NXP, Qualcomm, Renesas, and Texas Instruments. The company intends to pre-qualify its operating system on a range of hardware platforms and will initially certify it for a Renesas device at launch, with certification for a Qualcomm device to follow.

"Congratulations. Red Hat has successfully demonstrated that this first release of Red Hat In-Vehicle Operating System meets the highly sought after exida standard for certification to ISO 26262 ASIL-B. The exida ANAB accreditation is widely regarded as the toughest in the world and requires a higher quality of technical expertise and comprehensive product review of any certification body. This results in products that are safer, more secure, easier to use and more reliable. With this latest certification of the Red Hat In-Vehicle Operating System, Red Hat has shown they more than meet the ISO 26262 process framework requirements with their innovative 'upstream first' focus on technical solutions developed in open collaboration with experts around the world. In addition, since the most recent concept certificate was issued by exida in January, many Red Hat kernel maintainers and senior software development experts have successfully studied for and completed the exida Functional Safety Practitioner (FSP) qualification underlying their commitment to both open source and functional safety throughout their safety activities. Congratulations again to the entire global team involved in this complex endeavour for demonstrating that an operating system based on open source components can more than satisfy the intricate integrity requirements of ISO 26262," Jonathan Moore, Director of Advanced Systems at exida, commented on the certification.

Nissan, one of Red Hat's customers, is planning to use the operating system as part of its next-generation software-defined vehicle strategy.

"Nissan is joining forces with Red Hat to develop its next-generation software-defined vehicle platform, powered by Red Hat In-Vehicle Operating System. This collaboration will help propel Nissan's transformation into a software-defined vehicle leader, positioning the company in the evolving mobility landscape," Kazuma Sugimoto, General Manager of the Software Engineering Department, Software Defined Vehicle Engineering Division at Nissan Motor, said.

Renesas has contributed to the open source initiative and commented on the first platform to earn Red Hat certification.

"Renesas has always been an advocate for and active contributor to open source software. Since the announcement of Red Hat In-Vehicle Operating System availability on the RoX SDV platform, we've been excited about our collaboration. Today, we're proud to announce that the first certification of Red Hat In-Vehicle Operating System will be on the Renesas R-Car S4 platform. This combined solution gives customers the flexibility to design a wide range of scalable automotive compute systems, from ADAS and IVI to gateways and cross-domain fusion, without compromising on safety or security," Aish Dubey, Vice President and General Manager of the High Performance Computing SoC Business Division at Renesas, stated.

"Congratulations to Red Hat on achieving the ASIL-B certification for Red Hat In-Vehicle Operating System. This milestone is a testament to Red Hat's commitment to safety and innovation in the automotive industry. Qualcomm Technologies is proud to be a collaborator along this journey, and we look forward to providing our mutual customers with a safety-certified operating system that will drive the future of automotive technology," Laxmi Rayapudi, Vice President of Product Management at Qualcomm Technologies, remarked.