On design of complex safety critical automotive systems : a semi-automated approach for balancing profit and safety

Sammanfattning: Design processes for complex safety-critical systems in the automotive industry need to evolve in order to address increasing demands for integration of car functions over common networked infrastructures. New processes must address cost and safety concerns, and at the same time maximize profit. Automation provides a possibility to address these problems in design of complex systems and should thus be utilised. Automation is possibly the only option for handling the increasing technological complexity while still preserving the iterative design procedure that both reduces cost and gives room for design innovations. This thesis proposes a design process supported by novel techniques for semi-automatic safety and reliability analysis. System models are combined with multi-objective optimisation techniques to assist the gradual development of designs that can meet reliability and safety requirements as well as maximise profit within pragmatic development cost constraints. The proposed process relies on tools to automate some aspects of the design that can be automated and thus simplified without loss of the creative input brought to the process by designers. This thesis also presents the background and the necessity for this technical evolution towards network-embedded systems using open distributed architectures for future cars.