Cascading Failure Analysis Method of Avionics Based on Operational Process State

Yuqian Wu,Miao Wang,Gang Xiao

doi:10.1109/access.2020.3016026

Abstract

In the context of functional integration of avionics, the complex operational process interaction has increased the complexity of the cascading failure analysis, which is significant to evaluate the overall safety status and design rationality. In order to achieve a dynamic and dimensional evaluation of cascading failures, this paper proposes a safety analysis method based on operational process state, with an operational process-orientated hierarchical system functional framework established by means of the state machine. Then the cascading failure causation dynamic search algorithms and the cascading failure causation tree structure are designed respectively to describe the failure propagation in combination. Consequently, cascading failure propagation paths and minimum cut sets are generated automatically based on the search result. By using the aircraft integrated surveillance system as a research object, the effect and cause of cascading failure assessed in various failure scenarios have validated the effectiveness of the proposed method, and the comparison against the existing model based safety analysis methods demonstrates the higher flexibility and efficiency of the proposed method. The proposed method enables the dynamic and overall assessment of system safety status concentrating on the cascading failure utilizing the operational process state, and further enhances the systemization and automation level of the safety evaluation process in the early development phase.

Highlights

With the increasing complexity of avionics, cascading failure [1] has been used as a significant aspect in safety analysis, which provides the global effect assessment of a local failure, facilitating estimation of design rationality and optimization of the system configuration in the early development stage.Traditionally, the safety models are constructed manually by the fault tree analysis (FTA) [2], failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) based on engineering experience [3]
Compared with the cut sets generated from the fault tree by the static means, the minimum cut sets generated by the proposed method contain the state of nodes, which can illustrate the current situations with the dynamic behavior, as well as the cross influence of multiple elements, presenting more details for the top failure occurrence
By taking the traffic surveillance and meteorological surveillance functions referencing the A380 [33] as a research object, this paper demonstrates the cascading effect of the underlying events on the functional safety status of the integrated surveillance system (ISS) in typical abnormal scenarios related to the power supply, physical components, and safety mechanisms

Summary

INTRODUCTION

With the increasing complexity of avionics, cascading failure [1] has been used as a significant aspect in safety analysis, which provides the global effect assessment of a local failure, facilitating estimation of design rationality and optimization of the system configuration in the early development stage. Y. Wu et al.: Cascading Failure Analysis Method of Avionics Based on Operational Process State. The mentioned state-based cascading failure analysis methods are largely focused on the interactions between concrete physical components, which limits comprehensiveness and flexibility of the cascading failure analysis, attributed to neglecting the interactions between various operational processes. With the complexity increase and functional integration of the avionics design, the operational processes have obtained increasingly significant roles in cascading failure analysis, especially in the early phase when the component details are still obscure. In order to realize the accurate and integrated evaluation of cascading failure towards the functionally integrated avionics, this paper proposes an operational process state-orientated safety analysis method considering cascading failures. As presented in Fig., this framework mainly involves three processes, which are operational process state modeling, state relationships extraction, as well as cascading failure analysis and visualization

OPERATIONAL PROCESS STATE MODELING

CASE STUDY OF CASCADING FAILURE CAUSALITY

CONCLUSION