Janusz Zalewski

Real-Time Safety-Critical Systems: An Overview

Abstract Safety-critical systems that operate in real time have received enormous attention in recent years. This is mostly due to their importance in all kinds of sensitive applications, both civilian and military. Several surveys have been published on the principles of analysis and development of such systems, but they suffer from addressing the problem solely from an academic standpoint rather than exploring actual industrial practice. This paper lists cases of real-time safety-critical systems reported in the literature and tries to analyze the state-of-the-art in industry. It starts with a model of a real-time safety-critical system and focuses on two major industries: aerospace and nuclear. Other industries are also mentioned briefly