Physical Safety Architecture Analysis Using Failure-Rate Mapping
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Solution Overview
Problem
The increasing complexity of safety-critical systems in domains like aerospace, healthcare, and automotive poses challenges in designing architectures that meet safety and reliability requirements while reducing time-to-market and ensuring compliance with industrial norms and regulations.
Innovation Solution
A method for analyzing and designing a physical system architecture that involves creating a physical system analysis model, modifying it incrementally to match failure rates with a functional system analysis model, using component fault tree elements to calculate and compare failure rates, and employing architecture description languages like SYSML to ensure safety and reliability requirements are met.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If the system complexity of safety-critical systems increases, then the system can fulfill more functional requirements, but the effort to design and assure safe and reliable system increases drastically
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the safety analysis process into distinct phases: functional safety analysis (FSA) at the logical level and physical safety analysis (PSA) at the physical level. This segmentation allows complex safety-critical systems to be analyzed in manageable parts, reducing the overall design and assurance effort while maintaining comprehensive safety coverage.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent performs preliminary safety analysis by defining a physical-to-functional mapping before detailed design completion. This preliminary action identifies safety requirements early in the development process, allowing designers to address safety concerns before system complexity fully manifests, thereby reducing later assurance efforts.
2Adaptability or versatility
If the system complexity increases, then more functions can be implemented, but the time-to-market increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary safety analysis by defining a physical-to-functional mapping before detailed design completion. This preliminary action identifies safety requirements early in the development process, allowing parallel development of safety and functional aspects, thereby reducing time-to-market despite increased system complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent establishes feedback loops where safety analysis results inform design decisions iteratively. This continuous feedback ensures safety requirements are met throughout development rather than requiring extensive rework later, reducing overall time-to-market for complex safety-critical systems.
3Reliability
If traditional safety analysis methods are used, then safety requirements can be verified, but the process lacks systematic support for ensuring architecture satisfaction
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a physical-to-functional mapping as an intermediary artifact that systematically connects physical architecture elements to functional safety requirements. This intermediary provides structured support for verifying that the physical architecture satisfies safety requirements, making the verification process more systematic and manageable.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates a simplified virtual model (physical-to-functional mapping) that copies essential safety-relevant relationships from the complex physical architecture. This abstracted copy enables systematic safety verification without requiring analysis of the entire complex physical system, reducing the burden of systematic development processes.
Data Source
AI summary
Provided is a method for analyzing and designing a physical system architecture of a safety-critical system, wherein a physical system analysis model representing the physical system architecture of the safety-critical system is modified incrementally until calculated failure rates of failure modes of the physical system analysis model are less or equal to failure rates of corresponding failure modes of a functional system analysis model representing a functional system architecture of the safety-critical system.