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RTiS 2001 Topic 6

Safety critical systems

This session deals with the safe operation of computers in applications where there is a threat to people, the environment, investment or goodwill. The use of safety-related computer systems is expanding rapidly into application areas including medical devices, vehicle control and monitoring, industrial process control, air traffic control and many others. The fulfillment of real-time requirements are often of vital importance for the safe operation of the systems.

In many cases, e.g. vehicle control and monitoring, there is limited previous experience of program controlled systems, especially safety critical control systems. The introduction of safety critical computer systems in new applications, and the explosion of complexity, are two major challenges facing the developers of safety-critical systems today. Important questions facing the developers which will be discussed during this session are for example; What could the new application areas learn from the areas with longer experience? What are reasonable requirements on safety? How do we know that a system is safe?

The session is divided into four parts:

1. Jan-Erik Strömberg, DST CONTROL AB
   Developing safety-critical systems, divided into
   • - an industrial perspective giving an overview of product development techniques used in a range of industrial applications, e.g. automotive electronics, medical devices, unmanned aerial vehicles, aircraft arrester systems and laser based missile defence systems
   • - a research perspective giving an overview of research trends in system development illustrated using an example aerospace application where failure mode analysis is combined with functional verification using formal methods.
   Authored by Jan-Erik Strömberg, DST CONTROL AB, Linköping, and Simin Nadjm-Tehrani, Linköping University.
   
2. Medical devices. This talk gives examples on requirements, methods and practices used for ensuring the safe operation of medical devices. Presented by Carl-Henry Örndal, Gambro
3. A tutorial on SIL, Safety Integrity Levels, a notion which have become very popular during recent years and which is used, although in somewhat different ways, in several recent standards. Presented by Rolf Johansson and Joakim Ohlsson, CR&T
4. A panel session discussing the challenges introduced by the introduction of safety critical computer systems in new applications, and the explosion of complexity. Within the panel session, Jan Jacobsson, SP, will contribute with experience from the application of standards and certification