Functional Safety Becomes a Software Discipline
Cover Story Special Issue | Computer & Automation
As the worlds of control systems and IT evolve at rapid speed, safety in many places is still stuck in architectures from a time when hardware was expensive and software was primarily a means to an end.
Neuron Automation is fundamentally rethinking functional safety and designing it as a standardized, scalable, software-defined platform.
New machine concepts, growing robotics applications, modular system architectures, and stricter regulatory requirements are driving an increasing demand for safe functions. Yet this very growth is exposing the structural weaknesses of traditional safety approaches: functional safety is growing faster than the rest of the automation market while simultaneously becoming a structural bottleneck. As long as safety continues to be developed on a project-by-project basis, it slows down innovation. This is why Neuron has set itself the goal of turning safety into a standardized, reusable platform.
From Hardware Silos to Software-Defined Safety Architecture
For decades, functional safety was implemented primarily through physical separation: separate safety controllers, redundant hardware paths, or dedicated safety CPUs. In an era of limited computing power and clearly defined system boundaries, that model made technical sense.
At Neuron, modern multicore SoCs enable the parallel execution of safety-critical and non-safety-critical functions on a shared platform. The required separation is no longer physical, but logical at the runtime level. Dual safety channels can be implemented on a single processor using software diversity, with cyclic mutual monitoring and standards-compliant design up to SIL3 / PL e. At the same time, controllers are evolving into convergent platforms. Automation, motion, edge functionality, IT applications, and safety are growing together technologically. Separate safety controllers are therefore increasingly fading into the background. Safety is becoming an integral part of modern system architectures.
Click here to read the full article, including an interview with CTO Robert Mühlfellner: Functional Safety becomes a software discipline
