Introduction to SASSUR 2014

Abstract

The interest in and need for new safety assurance and certification approaches is undoubtedly increasing. First of all, critical systems are becoming more pervasive every day. They are used for a wide range of daily activities related to transportation, healthcare, or energy consumption, and for increasingly novel applications. Fully implantable artificial hearts and unmanned aerial vehicles are just two examples. Society increasingly depends on these systems, and on their safe operation. At the same time safety assurance and certification is becoming increasingly complex. This is a result of, for instance, evolution of regulatory practice, the increase in the size and complexity of the systems, the need for holistic assessment of cyber-physical systems, and the application of new technologies for enabling features such as autonomous, cooperative, or self-adaptive system behaviour. In addition, the application of new technologies in safety-critical systems potentially introduces new vulnerabilities that are not known yet but could affect to safety integrity.