Supporting the verification of compliance to safety standards via model-driven engineering: Approach, tool-support and empirical validation

  • Authors:

  • Rajwinder Kaur Panesar-Walawege;Mehrdad Sabetzadeh;Lionel Briand

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of Informatics, University of Oslo, Norway and Centre for Software Verification & Validation, Simula Research Laboratory, Norway;SnT Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg;Centre for Software Verification & Validation, Simula Research Laboratory, Norway and SnT Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg

  • Venue:
  • Information and Software Technology
  • Year:
  • 2013

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.00

Visualization

Abstract

Context: Many safety-critical systems are subject to safety certification as a way to provide assurance that these systems cannot unduly harm people, property or the environment. Creating the requisite evidence for certification can be a challenging task due to the sheer size of the textual standards based on which certification is performed and the amenability of these standards to subjective interpretation. Objective: This paper proposes a novel approach to aid suppliers in creating the evidence necessary for certification according to standards. The approach is based on Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) and addresses the challenges of using certification standards while providing assistance with compliance. Method: Given a safety standard, a conceptual model is built that provides a succinct and explicit interpretation of the standard. This model is then used to create a UML profile that helps system suppliers in relating the concepts of the safety standard to those of the application domain, in turn enabling the suppliers to demonstrate how their system development artifacts comply with the standard. Results: We provide a generalizable and tool-supported solution to support the verification of compliance to safety standards. Empirical validation of the work is presented via an industrial case study that shows how the concepts of a sub-sea production control system can be aligned with the evidence requirements of the IEC61508 standard. A subsequent survey examines the perceptions of practitioners about the solution. Conclusion: The case study indicates that the supplier company where the study was performed found the approach useful in helping them prepare for certification of their software. The survey indicates that practitioners found our approach easy to understand and that they would be willing to adopt it in practice. Since the IEC61508 standard applies to multiple domains, these results suggest wider applicability and usefulness of our work.