Software Systems Safety Design Guidelines and Recommendations

摘要

Software Systems Safety is a discipline within System Safety concerned with the potential safety risks associated with software and computers in safety critical applications. In recent years, a number of mishaps, some resulting in the death of or serious injury to people, have been attributed to software errors. Yet, every day new systems come on the market that employ computers for control of safety critical functions and there seems to be no slowing of the trend. Many of the safety critical errors found in software systems are design errors, in other words, the software control of a system is inherently unsafe. Therefore, a significant portion of the Software Systems Safety effort is focused on eliminating design errors and the development of specific safety design requirements that become a part of the final product. The intent of this technical report is to provide some guidelines and recommendations that may be useful in reducing the residual safety risk associated with software controlled systems. However, it is important to note that they must be tailored to the specific application and must be applied as part of a comprehensive system safety program. Keywords: System engineering; Safety engineering; Accident prevention; Medical computer applications; Computer applications. (kr)