Developing Electronic Systems for Safety-Critical Applications

This tutorial will be an update to a tutorial I have presented at the 2016, 2017 and 2018 ISSC. Topics presented include:

• Historical examples of inherently unsafe systems being made safe by the application of design features to mitigate hazards
• Discussion of the unique ways in which electronics and software can fail and cause system failure
• A few examples of catastrophic failures and a few examples where mitigations averted catastrophic failure
• Brief review of system safety basic concepts: hazards, risks
• Examples of electronics systems designed for safety: automotive, aircraft, spacecraft, autonomous vehicles
• Design techniques for highly dependable electronics: redundancy, standby systems, voting systems, fault-tolerant sensor and actuator designs
• Summary and conclusions