Run-time assertion schemes for safety-critical systems [pacemakers/defibrillators application]

The authors discuss issues in designing run-time mechanisms for enhancing the dependability of safely-critical systems. Such mechanisms are aimed at failure avoidance and failure detection and can complement the other design methods in achieving higher dependability. The authors introduce a safety-constraint centered transformation methodology that is based on a system's safety constraint specification and the development of techniques for analyzing the constraints to derive the run-time checking schemes. The authors also discuss other issues that are important in designing run-time checks, such as the types of safety constraints that can arise, features that specification languages must have to specify such constraints, how such safety constraints can be violated, and run-time support required for the mechanisms.