Q&A: Catalin-Stefan Ionescu, Continental Automotive
"All automotive activities are affected by Covid-19, from R&D to factories; development to testing. All of these force us to change..."
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Automotive Safety and Security Online is Automotive IQ’s second major online event of the year. It begins on June 30, and we have put together a great agenda of specially chosen speakers and sponsors who will deliver their interesting and insightful thoughts all free to our members.
If you have not had chance, sign up below to enjoy every session of the event from the comfort of your own home office.
Ahead of the event, we have been profiling some of our speakers, giving you the chance to understand why we have selected them to present as part of our event.
Meet the speaker
Catalin-Stefan Ionescu (right) is a system safety engineer at Continental Automotive. This means he is involved in a number of different roles, including coordinator of system safety activities, system safety management, system safety engineering and system safety analysis.
Through this experience, he has worked to deliver many different safety deliverables in the concept development phase of automated vehicle systems, from SAE Level 2 to Level 5.
He has also been involved in the creation of system safety strategy, including the definition of acceptance criteria; safety risk identification and evaluation; safety risk prevention and mitigation strategy; and verification and validation of mitigation and prevention measures.
We caught up with him ahead of our Automotive Safety and Security Online event:
Automotive IQ Could you share some of the biggest or most significant challenges that you face right now in ensuring that autonomous vehicle systems are safe to test on real roads?
Catalin-Stefan Ionescu The most significant challenge that I face is in ensuring that autonomous vehicle systems, and the event´s operations, are safe.
This includes the extension of automotive safety activities; ‘more than system’ safety measures, the high probability of system failure due to low product maturity and testing; the creation of the most efficient control measures for the event area; and the insurance that the residual risks are acceptable.
AIQ In your opinion, what are some of the biggest challenges that the industry is facing right now - including Covid-19 - and how that is likely to impact testing. For example, is it likely to push people towards more software-based solutions?
CSI The challenge right now for the automotive industry certainly comes from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic to our society through the implementation of necessary safety and distancing measures.
All automotive activities are affected, from R&D to factories; development to testing. All of these force us to change and adapt to the new necessities.
More and more, virtual activities are replacing the traditional ones. Most of the testing procedures and demonstration events can take place online and in virtual reality, based more on software solutions that use virtual simulations and allow working from distance.
AIQ Your session in Automotive IQ’s Automotive Safety and Security Online event will answer the question ‘How do we ensure the operational safety of an autonomous test vehicle?’ Could you share some of the main themes of your talk?
CSI The presentation will include the main aspects in automotive safety for ensuring the predictable, controllable and acceptable risk conditions for events that involve autonomous test vehicles.
The main discussion themes involve the reasons for an operational safety risk approach; identifying and evaluating risk, including strategies for management, prevention and mitigation; and safety recommendations.
To learn more about our speakers, head to the Automotive Safety and Security Online event site.
