Project shares safety-critical systems development insight

PICASSOS has been part-funded by the UK’s Advanced Manufacturing Supply Chain Initiative (AMSCI), and the project has focused on the creation and testing of methods for the development of safe electronic systems, in compliance with ISO 26262, at an affordable price.

The end-of-project event is to be hosted at the British Motor Museum on 28^th February 2017 and will take the form of a PICASSOS Formal Methods seminar. The event will focus upon the practical applications of Formal Methods (mathematically based techniques for the development of electronic systems) to the functional safety of automotive systems and beyond.

Formal Methods offer the power of rigorous reasoning and proof, but are often little understood and, as a result, seen as more difficult to apply than can actually be the case. Delegates will be able to learn in practical terms how they can improve safety and reliability by incorporating Formal Methods into their Model Based Design workflows for system and software design. The seminar will aim to demystify formal verification and help to make it more accessible to engineers, by showing how it can be harnessed practically and applied for the benefit of typical engineering processes.

Speakers from the industrial and academic partners of the PICASSOS project will outline its key findings, using examples based on the application of the automotive functional safety standard ISO 26262 to Electric Vehicle (EV) electronic systems. However, the project team will also explain the principles that would support applications of these tools and techniques in other domains and industries.

Presentations will cover Formal Methods and tools for their practical use; workflows and approaches that can be incorporated into existing processes; analysis for safety and correctness in system and software design; formal analysis based on models created in commercial tools such as Simulink, Stateflow and SysML, and – vitally – the business case for using Formal Methods.

“Safety-critical systems development is a crucial enabler for many next-generation innovations in transportation, such as powertrain electrification, automated driver assistance systems, and fully autonomous vehicles,” commented Richard Saady, Senior Manager, Electronics and Software, Ricardo. “The PICASSOS project has been extremely successful in demonstrating how Formal Methods can be applied in the development of safety-critical automotive systems in the context of the ISO 26262 automotive functional safety standard. At this seminar that we are hosting to mark the conclusion of the project, we aim to assist delegates by demonstrating the valuable insights gained through PICASSOS, and how these are widely applicable to the development of the safety-critical systems of future vehicle innovations, as well as to other product types and industrial sectors.”