AutoSteve: electrical design analysis

When designing electrical circuits for automotive applications, engineers carry out several painstaking but repetitive design analysis tasks. The paper describes work in automating such tasks, performing the tasks while minimising the amount of work that engineers need to do. The AutoSteve system can take circuit descriptions from electrical CAD tools and simulate the behaviour of the circuit as the state of the circuit changes (for example, because switches are closed or opened). Model-based simulation can be used by engineers to understand the proper working of their circuit design, but its main use is as a basis for automated design analysis. The paper describes how model-based qualitative simulation can be used as a basis for automated generation of a human-readable FMEA report.