Life-Critical Systems

Abstract

Aircraft, spacecraft, nuclear power plants (NPP’s), operating rooms in hospitals and hospitals themselves are usually denoted as “safety-critical systems”. They also belong to a broader class called “life-critical systems” that covers the purpose of this book and beyond. Life-critical systems (LCS) can be very simple such as circuit breakers, fire alarms, or fuse. They also can be very sophisticated such as robotic surgery machines, NPP instrumentation and control (I & C) systems, scuba-diving equipment, railway signaling and control systems, advanced braking systems on cars, air traffic management systems, and spacecraft.