Safety-Critical Software Design

Path	csiph.com!usenet.blueworldhosting.com!feeder01.blueworldhosting.com!border2.nntp.dca1.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!buffer2.nntp.dca1.giganews.com!nntp.supernews.com!news.supernews.com.POSTED!not-for-mail
NNTP-Posting-Date	Sat, 16 Jul 2016 23:57:16 -0500
From	Randy Yates <yates@digitalsignallabs.com>
Newsgroups	comp.arch.embedded
Subject	Safety-Critical Software Design
Organization	Digital Signal Labs
Date	Sun, 17 Jul 2016 00:57:16 -0400
Message-ID	<87vb04oo9f.fsf@digitalsignallabs.com> (permalink)
User-Agent	Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.5 (gnu/linux)
Cancel-Lock	sha1:cBAHW8K946Mx1qnTNZdDTJUywrA=
MIME-Version	1.0
Content-Type	text/plain
Lines	32
X-Trace	sv3-bOpM4opgWhF73135WwHkcMhleWofFv1zVgc3ImEvX39+XMbT/49x+EiZlm28Lq4AJTdWMOdm4PEas/j!32Bsth1rjnTi4Hivt/PSgiM4LuYU6vcIFmRNDD9b7jF815q4Ir9uES5MQLRHv1ju9hkoJj+X
X-Complaints-To	www.supernews.com/docs/abuse.html
X-DMCA-Complaints-To	www.supernews.com/docs/dmca.html
X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info	Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers
X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info	Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly
X-Postfilter	1.3.40
X-Original-Bytes	2414
Xref	csiph.com comp.arch.embedded:24629

Show key headers only | View raw

Hi Everyone,

Are there any formal requirements, guidelines, or recommendations for
software which will run in a safety-critical environment in the United
States or world-wide?

By a "safety-critical" environment I mean an environment in which a
failure can lead to loss of, or serious injury to, human life. For
example, automobile navigation systems, medical devices, lasers, etc.

I know there is the MISRA association and MISRA C. I am wondering if
there are others. 

My gut and experience tells me there should NEVER be software DIRECTLY
controlling signals of devices that might lead to human injury. Rather,
such devices should be controlled by discrete hardware, perhaps as
complex as an FPGA. There is always going to be a chance that a real
processor that, e.g., controls the enable signal to a laser is going to
crash with the signal enabled.

I realize that hardware-only control is subject to failures as well,
but they wouldn't seem to be nearly as likely as a coding failure.

Let me get even more specific: would it be acceptable to use a processor
running linux in such an application? My gut reaction is "Not only no,
but HELL no," but I'm not sure if I'm being overly cautious.

Any guidance, suggestions, comments, etc., would be appreciated.
-- 
Randy Yates, DSP/Embedded Firmware Developer
Digital Signal Labs
http://www.digitalsignallabs.com

Back to comp.arch.embedded | Previous | Next — Next in thread | Find similar | Unroll thread

Thread

Safety-Critical Software Design Randy Yates <yates@digitalsignallabs.com> - 2016-07-17 00:57 -0400
  Re: Safety-Critical Software Design Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2016-07-16 23:10 -0700
  Re: Safety-Critical Software Design Niklas Holsti <niklas.holsti@tidorum.invalid> - 2016-07-17 09:16 +0300
  Re: Safety-Critical Software Design Reinhardt Behm <rbehm@hushmail.com> - 2016-07-17 14:38 +0800
  Re: Safety-Critical Software Design upsidedown@downunder.com - 2016-07-17 10:37 +0300
  Re: Safety-Critical Software Design Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2016-07-17 03:09 -0700
    Re: Safety-Critical Software Design Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2016-07-17 03:32 -0700
      Re: Safety-Critical Software Design Niklas Holsti <niklas.holsti@tidorum.invalid> - 2016-07-17 22:49 +0300
      Re: Safety-Critical Software Design Les Cargill <lcargill99@comcast.com> - 2016-07-26 11:20 -0500
  Re: Safety-Critical Software Design Tim Wescott <tim@seemywebsite.com> - 2016-07-17 20:51 -0500
  Re: Safety-Critical Software Design FreeRTOS info <noemail@given.com> - 2016-07-21 10:33 +0100
  Re: Safety-Critical Software Design Les Cargill <lcargill99@comcast.com> - 2016-07-26 11:17 -0500

csiph-web