Column: Airspace
provides additional guidance about the development of circuit board assemblies, custom components, such as ASICs and FPGAs, and special components such as hybrids and multi-chip modules. Te advisory also provides guidance on the use of commercial
off-the-shelf (COTS) components. Tis can provide valuable protection for hardware developers, since COTS component suppliers may not follow required aviation industry design processes or provide mandatory lifecycle data. It’s worth noting that these documents refer to hardware and
don’t attempt to define firmware. Firmware should be classified as either hardware or soſtware and addressed by the applicable processes. RTCA DO-178/EUROCAE ED-12 is the relevant documentation for soſtware functions.
Functionally-safe UAM It’s tempting to consider UAM as an extension of the category containing land-based electric vehicles (EVs), essentially describing them as flying EVs. However, this would be wrong even from a functional safety standpoint. Although the requirements relating to safety documentation are similar in terms of traceability and approval of lifecycle changes, different
The EASA is developing a special means of compliance that should help the market for UAM services to flourish
considerations apply when using the same components in aircraſt, and eVTOLs for UAM applications should also be considered a special category. Te general concept behind the functional-safety design,
which is to assess a risk profile for potential failures and then minimise the chance of a catastrophic result, applies in both domains. Ultimately no vehicle, whether designed for use on land or in the air, can be 100% safe in every eventuality. For UAM to succeed, the safety risks need to be reduced to a level acceptable to stakeholders, including customers of the services, government bodies that approve and license the services, and the general public affected by the services.
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