A formal method approach to analyze the design of aircraft Flight Control Systems

The paper shows how the system algebra formal method can be used to analyze the system design of safety critical systems like the Flight Control Systems (FCS) of Jaguar, Airbus A380, and the Boeing 777 aircraft. The capability of the system algebra to verify critical system features like system availability, redundancy, coupling and fault tolerance based on the system states is demonstrated by simulation. The results presented are verification of the safety design requirements of the Jaguar aircraft, and a comparison of the FCSs of the Boeing 777 and Airbus A380. A comparison of system algebra with other popular system analysis approaches like the reliability block diagram (RBD) and fault tree analysis (FTA) is discussed.