Characterization of failure effects on AADL models

Abstract

Prior works on model-based Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) automatically generate a FMEA table given the system model, a set of failure modes, and a set of possible effects. The last requirement is critical as bias may occur: since the considered failure effects are restricted to the anticipated ones, unexpected effects - the most interesting ones - are disregarded in the FMEA. In this paper, we propose and investigate formal concepts that aim to overcome this bias. They support the construction of FMEA tables solely based on the system model and the failure modes, i.e., without requiring the set of effects as input. More concretely, given a system specification in the Architecture Analysis and Design Language (AADL), we show how to derive relations that characterize the effects of failures based on the state transition system of that specification. We also demonstrate the benefits and limitations of these concepts on a satellite case study. © 2013 Springer-Verlag.