Software guided onto safe pathway
Guillem Bernat · Information Professional · 2004
Researchers are working on software to make it easier to check safety-critical software for bugs and timing problems. The problem that faces developers of software for systems such as anti-lock braking controllers and airbag detonators is that a fault may not be a bug that can be picked up using standalone tests. Often, faults may be caused by timing problems. That was the situation that faced researchers at the University of York when they were trying to analyse what was going wrong with a steer-by-wire system for a car. The approach picked by the York team was to combine elements of static analysis with instrumented tests in a probabilistic model that estimates the likelihood of the system failing.