Component:Functional Safety

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Benefits

Provides a full-system safety view across hardware, software, network, RTOS and power domains.
Reveals failure propagation paths and weaknesses in redundancy strategies before implementation.
Enables early certification strategy planning for ISO 26262 / DO-254 without hardware prototypes.
Reduces re-design and re-certification cost by detecting missing safety mitigations early.
Supports rapid iteration of fault-containment strategies and degraded-mode operation.

The Functional Safety library in VisualSim Architect provides a framework to evaluate the correctness of system behavior under fault and abnormal operating conditions. It measures the impact, response time and correctness of system recovery when hardware, software, network, scheduling (RTOS) or power subsystems are operating incorrectly or unpredictably.

The library facilitates extremely early compliance evaluation by modeling faults and safety-response logic long before hardware or certification-grade software is built. It supports validation against industry safety standards including ISO 26262 (automotive) and DO-254 (aerospace).

Overview

The library provides configurable, reusable components for safety-mechanism and failure-impact evaluation across the system:

Fault Generation Blocks — inject hardware, software, network, RTOS and power failures.
Safety Monitor Blocks — validate timing and correctness of mitigation response.
Safety Mechanism Models — redundancy, watchdog timers, task migration, reset logic and degraded-mode strategies.
Stochastic Failure Models — random and conditional failure triggers based on probability, usage and environmental profiles.
Safety Test Library — ready-to-use safety-test cases, plus support for custom test development.

These components enable system-level safety analysis across heterogeneous platforms.

Supported Standards

ISO 26262 — Functional Safety for Road Vehicles
DO-254 — Design Assurance for Airborne Electronic Hardware
DO-178C (abstract support) — for software-driven safety flows (when RTOS is modeled)
IEC 61508 / 62304 (abstract compatibility) — for generic industrial/medical safety evaluation

Key Parameters

Fault_Type — hardware, software, network, scheduling or power.
Trigger_Condition — time-based, probability-based or event-driven.
Fault_Severity — transient, intermittent, degraded, or complete failure.
Detection_Latency — time to identify a fault.
Response_Time — time to apply mitigation.
Mitigation_Strategy — restart, failover, degraded mode, isolation, redundancy.
Correctness_Criteria — expected post-mitigation functional state.
Recovery_Timeout — maximum allowable time before declaring failure.
Safety_Mode_Profile — operational limits in fallback/degraded mode.

Analysis and Reports

Fault-impact vs. mission timeline
Detection and mitigation latency
Correctness of post-mitigation behavior
Coverage of fault-handling logic
System availability and degraded-mode performance
Probability of unsafe state vs. architecture configuration

Applications

Automotive Safety — ECUs, ADAS processing, drive-by-wire, braking support, battery management and redundancy evaluation.
Aerospace and Defense — mission computers, flight control, sensors, guidance and navigation, secure avionics networks.
Industrial / Robotics / Mechatronics — actuators, motors, PLCs and machine-safety behavior under faults.
Transport / Railway / Marine — safety-critical embedded systems requiring predictable failure response.
Semiconductor / SoC Safety Architecture — heterogeneous cores, accelerators, NoCs, memory and power safety logic.

Integrations

Processor, Memory, NoC, Communication and Power libraries for fault insertion and impact analysis.
RTOS and Scheduler models for task migration and watchdog-driven recovery.
Thermal, Electrical & Mechanical and Power Management libraries for fault escalation analysis.
Traffic and Workload generators to apply realistic mission / scenario conditions during safety tests.