Collaborative Research: DASS: Accountable Software Systems for Safety-Critical Applications

安全关键软件系统正在大量进入市场，预计将改变许多行业，包括医疗保健，运输，制造业等。为了应对软件系统日益增加的社会影响和复杂性，立法者和监管机构正在实施新的法律、法规和指导方针，以使软件对其有害影响负责。 这些法律的方法在不同的司法管辖区和不同的应用程序领域都有所不同，随着立法者和监管机构继续研究和解决新兴软件功能，它们将随着时间的推移而发展。尽管监管压力越来越大，但最先进的软件设计方法在安全关键系统中提供所需的问责制方面存在不足。该项目的新颖性是双重的：（1）开发原则性的方法和工具，以确保和证明安全关键软件系统的责任与法律和法规，随着时间的推移，（2）推进一个法律的框架，协调跨异构安全关键域的软件系统的监管监督。该项目的影响是促进安全关键软件系统的设计，对各种法规负责，并提供法律的见解，如何扩展或修改目前的监管办法，以加强软件问责制。此外，研究人员将组织一系列跨学科研讨会和专题讨论会，汇集软件设计和法律专家，讨论开放的研究问题和软件问责制的潜在解决方案。研究人员还计划开发计算机科学和法律的新课程材料，以整合拟议的研究成果，并积极招募代表性不足的学生担任拟议项目的职位。该项目包括三个研究方向，旨在为软件设计和法律做出基础性贡献。第一个推力创建了新的方法和工具，用于在整个软件开发生命周期中开发组合动态保证案例，以保证和演示问责制。第二个推力开发新的形式验证技术，用于生成可证明和可认证的法规遵从性保证，这些保证可用作保证案例中的证据。 第三个重点是发展法律的洞察力，立法者和监管机构应该如何扩展或修改当前的监管方法，以纳入软件问责制方法的进步。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

Safety-critical software systems are entering the market in large numbers and are expected to transform many industries including healthcare, transportation, manufacturing, and others. In response to the rising societal impact and complexity of software systems, lawmakers and regulatory authorities are implementing new laws, regulations, and guidelines to hold software accountable for its harmful effects. These legal approaches differ across jurisdictions and across application domains, and they will evolve over time as lawmakers and regulators continue to study and address emerging software capabilities. Despite this mounting regulatory pressure, state-of-the-art software-design methodologies are deficient at providing the desired accountability in safety-critical systems. The project’s novelties are twofold: (1) developing principled approaches and tools for assuring and demonstrating accountability of safety-critical software systems with respect to laws and regulations that evolve over time, and (2) advancing a legal framework that harmonizes regulatory oversight of software systems across heterogeneous safety-critical domains. The project’s impacts are facilitating the design of safety-critical software systems that are accountable with respect to various regulations, and providing legal insight on how to extend or amend current regulatory approaches to enhance software accountability. In addition, the investigators will organize a series of interdisciplinary workshops and symposiums to bring together experts in software design and law to discuss open research questions and potential solutions to software accountability. The investigators also plan to develop new course materials in computer science and law to integrate the proposed research outcomes, and actively recruit underrepresented students for positions in the proposed project.The project includes three research thrusts that seek to make fundamental contributions to both software design and law. The first thrust creates novel approaches and tools for developing compositional dynamic assurance cases throughout the software development lifecycle to assure and demonstrate accountability. The second thrust develops novel formal-verification techniques for generating provable and certifiable regulation compliance guarantees, which can be used as evidence in assurance cases. The third thrust develops legal insight on how lawmakers and regulators should extend or amend current regulatory approaches to incorporate advances in software accountability methods.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.