A new modeling approach to the safety evaluation of N-modular redundant computer systems in presence of imperfect maintenance
2009 (English)In: Reliability Engineering & System Safety, ISSN 0951-8320, E-ISSN 1879-0836, Vol. 94, no 9, p. 1422-1432Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
A large number of safety-critical control systems are based on N-modular redundant architectures, using majority voters on the outputs of independent computation units. In order to assess the compliance of these architectures with international safety standards, the frequency of hazardous failures must be analyzed by developing and solving proper formal models. Furthermore, the impact of maintenance faults has to be considered, since imperfect maintenance may degrade the safety integrity level of the system. In this paper, we present both a failure model for voting architectures based on Bayesian networks and a maintenance model based on continuous time Markov chains, and we propose to combine them according to a compositional multiformalism modeling approach in order to analyze the impact of imperfect maintenance on the system safety. We also show how the proposed approach promotes the reuse and the interchange of models as well the interchange of solving tools. © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2009. Vol. 94, no 9, p. 1422-1432
Keywords [en]
Bayesian Networks, Imperfect maintenance, Multiformalism modeling, N-modular redundancy, Safety, Continuous time Markov chain, Failure model, Formal model, International safety standards, Maintenance models, Majority voter, Modeling approach, Redundant architecture, Safety evaluations, Safety integrity levels, Safety-critical control systems, System safety, Distributed parameter networks, Docking, Inference engines, Intelligent networks, Interchanges, Knowledge based systems, Maintenance, Markov processes, Quality assurance, Redundancy, Regulatory compliance, Speech analysis, Standardization, Systems engineering
National Category
Embedded Systems
Research subject
Computer Science, Software Technology
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:mdh:diva-47812DOI: 10.1016/j.ress.2009.02.014ISI: 000267955300007Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-67349173170OAI: oai:DiVA.org:mdh-47812DiVA, id: diva2:1427349
2018-06-052020-04-292022-03-18Bibliographically approved