Safety Analysis of Evolving Product Lines

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ABSTRACT0541163Robyn LutzIowa State UniversitySafety Analysis of Evolving Product LinesChange can jeopardize the safety of a software system. When change occurs in a product line, the safety consequences can be even greater because multiple systems are involved. Examples of safety-critical product lines include cardiac pacemakers, communication satellites, airplane cockpit displays, and assistive robots. Product lines are currently built knowing that they will need to evolve to incorporate new features and updated software but not knowing how to ensure that they will still operate safely when such changes occur. This research: (1) investigates types of evolution that are both common and problematic in safety-critical product lines, (2) extends safety-analysis techniques to efficiently update the product-line safety analysis as the software evolves, (3) develops automated tool support, and (4) applies and empirically evaluates the results. The significance of this work is that it improves understanding of how safety-critical product lines evolve and develops analysis techniques, tools, and strategies to reduce the cost of safety analysis and enhance the safety of evolving product lines. Educational activities to develop teaching materials and engage undergraduates in research, as well as involvement with industrial communities, broaden the impact of the research.