An exploration of the issues affecting the development of software-based safety-critical systems

A safety-critical system is a system whose failure could result in loss of life, significant property damage, or damage to the environment (Knight, 1990). Miniaturisation and processing improvements have enabled the spread of safety-critical devices from nuclear and military applications to domains as diverse as implanted medical devices, traffic control, smart vehicles, and interactive virtual environments. This paper provides an examination of the techniques used in the specification, design, implementation and testing of safety-critical software. The techniques used to successfully combat faults; fault avoidance, fault elimination, fault tolerance, fault evasion, are examined and structured according to the relevant software development phase they are most applicable to.