Development of Safety-Critical Systems: Architecture and Software

This book provides professionals and students with practical guidance for the development of safety-critical computer-based systems. It covers important aspects ranging from complying with standards and guidelines to the necessary software development process and tools, and also techniques pertaining to model-based application development platforms as well as qualified programmable controllers.

After a general introduction to the book’s topic in chapter 1, chapter 2 discusses dependability aspects of safety systems and how architectural design at the system level helps deal with failures and yet achieves the targeted dependability attributes. Chapter 3 presents the software development process which includes verification and validation at every stage, essential to the development of software for systems performing safety functions. It also explains how the process helps in developing a safety case that can be independently verified and validated. The subsequent chapter 4 presents some important standards and guidelines, which apply to different industries and in different countries. Chapter 5 then discusses the steps towards complying with the standards at every phase of development. It offers a guided tour traversing the path of software qualification by exploring the necessary steps towards achieving the goal with the help of case studies. Chapter 6 highlights the application of formal methods for the development of safety systems software and introduces some available notations and tools which assist the process. Finally, chapter 7 presents a detailed discussion on the importance and the advantages of qualified platforms for safety systems application development, including programmable controller (PLC) and formal model-based development platforms. Each chapter includes case studies illustrating the subject matter.

The book is aimed at both practitioners and students interested in the art and science of developing computer-based systems for safety-critical applications. Both audiences will get insights into the tools and techniques along with the latest developments in the design, analysis and qualification, which are constrained by the regulatory and compliance requirements mandated by the applicable guides and standards. It also addresses the needs of professionals and young graduates who specialize in the development of necessary tools and qualified platforms.

Gopinath Karmakar is a Scientific Officer-H in the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) in Mumbai, India.  He has nearly 35 years of experience in the field of instrumentation and control for safety-critical systems in nuclear power plants and nuclear research reactors, which includes the development of hard real-time systems, operating systems for safety-critical applications, software engineering for Class IA and IB systems, programmable controllers and systems engineering. He is also an adjunct faculty in BARC Training School.

Amol Wakankar has been working with BARC as a Scientific Officer since 2006. Amol has been focusing on safety critical systems development for nuclear power plants for more than 15 years. His field of expertise include analysis and compilation of synchronous dataflow programs and the application of formal methods in safety critical domains.  His current research interests include the application of formal methods for architecture-centric dependability analysis and automated synthesis from formal requirements. Together with Paritosh Pandya, he has developed the DCSYNTH tool, which offers automatic synthesis of robust controllers and runtime enforcement shields.

Ashutosh Kabra has been working as a Scientific Officer at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) since 2007.  He has over a decade of experience in the development of computer based I&C systems for nuclear power plants and research reactors. His expertise includes embedded software development, formalization of PLC programming languages, system dependability analysis and software qualification. His current research activities are targeted at reliability analysis using systems architecture, distributed systems in safety-critical applications and formal verification of software.

Paritosh Pandya is an adjunct professor at IIT Bombay and former Dean of the School of Technology and Computer Science at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR). He is known for his work on Duration Calculus and the tools he developed, which include DCVALID, a validity and model checker, and DCSYNTH for automatic synthesis of robust controllers. Paritosh is the recipient of the prestigious IEEE RTS 2020 "Test of Time award" for his pioneering contributions to the theory of schedulability in hard real-time systems.