Modeling the Propagation of Failures in Software Driven Hardware Systems to Enable Risk-Informed Design

摘要

Software-driven hardware configurations account for the majority of modern complex systems. The often costly failures of such systems can be attributed to software specific, hardware specific, or software/hardware interaction failures. The understanding of the propagation of failures in a complex system is critical because, while a software component may not fail in terms of loss of function, a software operational state can cause an associated hardware failure. This research is to develop high-level system modeling approaches to model failure propagation in combined software/hardware system (FFIP). The end goal is to identify the most likely and highest cost paths for fault propagation in a complex system as an effective way to enhance the reliability of a system.