Model-Based Safety Contracts for Component Failure Analysis
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current methods for generating safety contracts in safety-critical systems are manual, time-consuming, and prone to errors, especially as system complexity increases, with limited automation and only partial coverage of relevant assumptions for environment guarantees.
Innovation Solution
A system and method for automatic generation of safety contracts using a model-based safety analysis model with separate modules related to components, defining inport and outport failure modes, and employing a component fault tree model to create interface and component contracts with defined assumptions and guarantees, ensuring completeness and consistency.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If manual methods are used to generate safety contracts, then completeness and accuracy of safety analysis can be achieved through expert review, but the process becomes time-consuming and costly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by automatically generating safety contracts from system models before actual safety analysis is performed. The model-based approach pre-defines safety requirements, assumptions, and guarantees in a structured format, eliminating the need for time-consuming manual contract creation and expert reviews while maintaining completeness through systematic model traversal.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces the mechanical manual process of safety contract generation with an automated model-based system. Instead of experts manually writing and reviewing safety contracts, the system automatically generates them from predefined models, substituting human mechanical work with automated computational processes that are both faster and more consistent.
2Reliability
If manual safety contract generation is used, then expert knowledge can ensure accuracy, but certification costs increase and maintainability decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces manual expert-based safety contract generation with automated model-based generation. This substitution maintains reliability by systematically deriving contracts from verified models while dramatically reducing certification costs and improving maintainability through automated consistency checks and model-based traceability.
Solution Approach 2:
The system applies self-service by enabling automatic generation and validation of safety contracts without requiring continuous expert intervention. The model-based approach allows the system to self-validate consistency between safety requirements, assumptions, and guarantees, reducing dependence on manual expert reviews while maintaining accuracy.
3Adaptability or versatility
If system complexity increases with more components, then functionality improves, but manual safety analysis becomes increasingly error-prone and incomplete
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies segmentation by breaking down the complex system into individual component models, each with its own safety requirements, assumptions, and guarantees. The model-based approach systematically processes each component and their interfaces separately, then aggregates the results to provide comprehensive safety coverage for the entire system, preventing omissions that occur in manual analysis of complex systems.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces manual safety analysis with automated model-based analysis that can handle increasing system complexity without degrading reliability. The systematic traversal of component models and their interfaces ensures complete safety coverage even as the number of components grows, eliminating the error-prone nature of manual analysis in complex systems.
4Reliability
If more comprehensive safety assumptions are included, then safety analysis completeness improves, but the complexity of generating and managing contracts increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies universality by creating a unified model-based framework that handles all safety contract elements (requirements, assumptions, guarantees) in a consistent manner. The same modeling approach and automated generation process works for all components and interfaces, reducing the complexity of managing comprehensive safety assumptions compared to ad-hoc manual approaches for each element.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces manual generation and management of comprehensive safety contracts with automated model-based generation. The system systematically derives all safety assumptions from component models and their interfaces, ensuring completeness while managing complexity through automation rather than manual processes.
Data Source
AI summary
Provided is a system for safety analysis of failure behavior for a unit including two or more components with at least one inport for receiving failure data and one outport for transmitting failure data, wherein for the analysis of the failures data of the components and/or the unit a safety contract is used, and wherein the safety contract is generated automatically by a model-based safety analysis model comprising separate SAM modules which are related to the components of the unit.