System design and risk assessment for safety critical control software product lines

A methodology is presented for the design of safety critical product lines for control automation software. The functional failure identification and propagation risk assessment method is used in the early design phase of the mechatronic system. The applied methodology starts with the decomposition of the system into functions that are connected by energy, material and signal flows. This results in a functional model that does not make any assumptions on what components are used to realize the functions. The functions are mapped to mechatronic components in a model that can be simulated: the configuration flow graph. Functional failure logic is executed in parallel to the simulation to monitor the simulation signals and to determine the health of each function. The functional health results of the simulation, when critical events are injected, are used to identify the propagation of functional failures. Alternative designs that are described with a feature model, combinations of component parameter values and changes in the critical event scenario can be simulated. System designs that result in undesirable behavior are rejected. The purpose is to identify risks and to determine mechatronic designs with adequate safety characteristics before the design process branches into software, electrical and mechanical domains. The final deliverable of the mechatronic system design phase is a feature model capturing the design alternatives with acceptable safety characteristics. The aspect of this model containing software is the starting point for software product line engineering. In control automation, programmable logic controller targets are used, so a methodology and toolchain for supporting software product line configuration for such platforms has been developed using the PLCopen standard. Two case studies are used to demonstrate the methodology: a boiling water reactor, with a focus on reactor coolant pumps, and a mobile elevating work platform

Adaptive fault diagnosis in interactive electronic technical manuals (IETMs)

An Interactive Electronic Technical Manual (IETM) is a technical manual that is prepared in digital format to provide information about the diagnostics and maintenance of complex systems.;In this thesis we present a methodology for adaptive fault diagnosis in IETMs, a methodology that constantly adapts the fault diagnosis procedure, according to the experience of the user performing the diagnosis. We develop a framework of adaptation that constantly monitors user behavior, and learns about the fault and its possible causes as the system is used, hence making it easier to perform such procedures, which increases efficiency of usage of such a manual, an essential factor in performing fault diagnosis. We will also extend S1000D to incorporate all information necessary for our adaptation methodology.;The outcome of our methodology will be an IETM which contains adaptable fault diagnosis procedures that adapt to users according to their expertise levels making these procedures less cumbersome for users to accomplish, hence increasing their productivity and efficiency. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

Third Conference on Artificial Intelligence for Space Applications, part 1

The application of artificial intelligence to spacecraft and aerospace systems is discussed. Expert systems, robotics, space station automation, fault diagnostics, parallel processing, knowledge representation, scheduling, man-machine interfaces and neural nets are among the topics discussed

Procceedings / 4th International Symposium of Industrial Engineering - SIE 2009, December 10-11, 2009., Belgrade

editors Dragan D. Milanović, Vesna Spasojević-Brkić, Mirjana Misit

Procceedings / 4th International Symposium of Industrial Engineering - SIE 2009, December 10-11, 2009., Belgrade

editors Dragan D. Milanović, Vesna Spasojević-Brkić, Mirjana Misit