Safety-critical system

Safety-critical system is a type of system where failure or malfunction can result in severe consequences, including loss of life, significant property damage, or damage to the environment. These systems are often found in industries such as aviation, nuclear power, healthcare, and transportation.

Definition

A safety-critical system is defined as a system whose failure or malfunction may result in one (or more) of the following outcomes:

• death or serious injury to people
• loss or severe damage to equipment/property
• environmental harm

Safety-critical systems are typically interactive, complex, and often embedded in even more complex 'systems of systems'. This makes them difficult to design, analyze, verify, validate, and certify.

Design

The design of safety-critical systems requires a systematic approach to ensure all potential hazards have been identified and adequately mitigated. This often involves the use of formal methods in system design and software engineering, as well as rigorous system testing and verification and validation processes.

Examples

Examples of safety-critical systems include:

• Air traffic control systems
• Nuclear power plants
• Medical equipment such as pacemakers and anesthesia machines
• Railway signaling systems
• Automotive safety systems such as anti-lock braking systems and airbag control systems

Safety standards

There are several international safety standards that provide guidelines for the development of safety-critical systems. These include ISO 26262 for automotive systems, DO-178C for aviation software, and IEC 61508 for functional safety of electrical/electronic/programmable electronic safety-related systems.

See also

• High integrity system
• Reliability engineering
• Risk assessment
• Software reliability