Safety Critical Linux - Working Group Proposal by Nicholas Mc Guire

Technical Relevance

Control systems have been making a continuous migration from micro-controller based "state-machines" to full features OS based systems to allow for extended maintenance monitoring and centralizing of services (i.e. control and HMI on one system). In the filed of safety critical systems this trend has also been noticeable with the limitation that COTS and OSS components can't be as easily integrated as in non-critical systems. We consider the integration of COTS/OSS components in safety critical system a key issue in reducing the costs of safety critical systems and at the same time increasing there availability.

Many areas that formally have been managed by non-critical systems or humans have reached modes of operation that can no longer be managed by human response (i.e. due to increased speed) further the issue of high available systems - all though not related directly to safety systems - can profit from the findings of the safety assessments for OSS components and thus improve availability of existing and future systems.