Vertical Safety Interfaces - Improving the Efficiency of Modular Certification

Modular certification is a technique for transferring the modularity of an embedded system's architecture to the traditionally monolithic craft of safety engineering. Particularly when applying integrated architectures like AUTOSAR or IMA, modular certification allows the construction of modular safety cases, which ensures the flexible handling of platforms and applications. However, the task of integrating these safety cases is still a manual and expensive endeavor, lowering the intended flexibility of an integrated architecture. We propose a toolsupported semi-automatic integration method that preserves the architecture's flexibility and helps to lower the integration costs. Our method is based on a language capable of specifying the conditions for a valid integration of a platform and of an application using a contract-based approach to model safety case interfaces. This paper presents the language in detail.

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