Probabilistic safety management of control laws against deviations from normal operating-range

This paper proposes a probabilistic safety management framework for control laws to reduce the frequency of events that a physical value in a control system deviates from its normal operating-range. This safety function is realized mainly by the safety ability to suppress the fluctuations of transient responses after a device failure in order to prevent the deviations from the normal operating-range on the basis of dependability function to maintain the stability and the control performance even if the system is not in the normal operation. The proposed safety function in control laws can supplement ordinary safety-related systems in risk reduction according to international safety standards such as IEC 61508. This is the first study based on the distinction between safety and dependability in fault-tolerant control.