Efficient Simulation of Faults in Networked Cyber-Physical Systems

Functional safety is a major concern in today’s networked cyber-physical systems such as connected machines, autonomous vehicles, and intelligent environments. Simulation is a well-known methodology for the assessment of functional safety. Simulation models of networked cyber-physical systems are very heterogeneous relying on digital hardware executing software, analog hardware, and network domains. Current functional safety assessment is mainly focused on digital hardware failures while minor or no attention is devoted to the faults that are conveyed by the interconnecting network. The paper discusses how software errors, digital failures and communication issues can affect the information exchange between network nodes in networked cyber-physical systems. Then the resulting faults are described from the network perspective and simulated at high abstraction level to speed up analysis.