Automotive safety is entering a new era. For a long time, the focus was on passive safety, that is, how to protect passengers during collision. But with the most extensive reform in the last 15 years, the European New Car Assessment Program (Euro NCAP) for 2026 drastically changes the paradigm.
The focus is now shifting from surviving a crash to actively preventing it, placing at the center technologies that monitor and understand the most unpredictable factor in traffic – the driver himself.
New pillars of security
Namely, the previous evaluation system, which was based on the protection of adults, children and pedestrians and assistance systems, will be replaced from 2026 by a completely new, holistic structure that monitors the four phases of a potential accident: Safe Driving, Crash Avoidance, Crash Protection and Post-Crash Safety. Read more about it in our text here.
Although all categories bring stricter criteria, it is “Safe Driving” that represents a tectonic change for the entire industry. This new category, which carries up to 60 points from 2026, with a planned increase to 72 points in 2027 and even 84 points in 2028, directly evaluates how effectively a vehicle can monitor the condition and behavior of its passengers.
At the center are advanced driver monitoring systems (DMS) and passenger monitoring systems (OMS). It will no longer be enough for the car to only warn of fatigue by detecting sudden movements of the steering wheel. The new Euro NCAP protocols require systems that, using cameras, often infrared, continuously monitor the movements of the driver’s eyes and head in order to detect microsleep, drowsiness, but also different forms of distraction, such as the use of mobile phones.
According to the criteria, the system must be capable of distinguishing a short glance in the rearview mirror from a dangerous deviation from the road, in different lighting conditions and regardless of whether the driver wears glasses or has a beard. Moreover, it goes a step further, with the introduction of tests to identify the driver’s inactivity, either due to a sudden health problem or the influence of alcohol and drugs, after which the vehicle must be able to stop safely.
A ‘technological earthquake’ in the automotive industry
To meet the new requirements, it will be necessary to process large amounts of data from cameras and sensors in real time, with very low latency and a minimal number of false alarms. At the same time, the systems must be energy efficient, reliable and comply with norms such as ISO 26262 and the corresponding ASIL levels of functional safety.
As vehicles approach more advanced levels of automation (L2++, L3 and more), there is a growing need for heterogeneous computing architectures that combine classic processor cores, AI accelerators and programmable logic. Instead of a series of separate chips, integrated SoC solutions are increasingly being used, which enable the convergence of DMS, OMS and ADAS systems on a single platform.
Among the companies developing such platforms is AMD, whose adaptive SoCs are used in certain implementations of driver monitoring and advanced assistance systems. The concept of adaptive computing, which enables subsequent adaptation of hardware and software functions, is particularly relevant in the context of a regulatory environment that changes every few years.
The reform of Euro NCAP for 2026 thus not only brings new test protocols, but accelerates the wider transformation of cars into computer-defined systems.