Multi-domain surety modeling and analysis for high assurance systems

Engineering systems are becoming increasingly complex as state of the art technologies are incorporated into designs. Surety modeling and analysis is an emerging science that permits an engineer to qualitatively and quantitatively predict and assess the completeness and predictability of a design. Surety is a term often used in the Department of Defense (DoD) and Department of Energy (DOE) communities, which refers to the integration of safety, security, reliability and performance aspects of design. Current risk assessment technologies for analyzing complex systems fail to adequately describe the problem, thus making assessment fragmented and non-integrated. To address this problem, we have developed a methodology and extensible software toolset to address model integration and complexity for high consequence systems. The MultiGraph Architecture (MGA) facilitates multi-domain, model-integrated modeling and analyses of complex, high-assurance systems. The MGA modeling environment allows the engineer to customize the modeling environment to match a design paradigm representative of the actual design. Previous modeling tools have a predefined model space that forces the modeler to work in less than optimal environments. Current approaches force the problem to be bounded and constrained by requirements of the modeling tool and not the actual design problem. In some small cases, this is only marginally adequate. The MGA facilitates the implementation of a surety methodology, which is used to represent high assurance systems with respect to safety and reliability. Formal mathematical models are used to correctly describe design safety and reliability functionality and behavior. The functional and behavioral representations of the design are then analyzed using commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) tools.