Reliability analysis of complex hardware-software systems

In this paper, the authors demonstrate how fault tree analysis could be used to perform reliability analysis of hardware-software systems. The functional dependency of the hardware components on the interfacing software components is appropriately modeled using fault trees. The MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)-CSR's (Center for Space Research) ACIS (Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility Imaging Charge Couple Device Imaging Spectrometer) system is used to illustrate the fault tree analysis method in reliability analysis of complex hardware-software systems. The ACIS science instrument system is a space borne system to acquire and process X-ray images over the sky, and sends them to earth. It has hardware and software components with interfaces between them making it a very good example of a complex hardware software system. This approach could be used in analyzing other complex systems being designed today and in identifying the critical components to make the system safe and more reliable.