PLFaultCAT: A Product-Line Software Fault Tree Analysis Tool

摘要

Industry currently employs a product line approach to software development and deployment as a means to enhance quality while reducing development cost and time. This effort has created a climate where safety-critical software product lines are being developed without the full range of accompanying safety analysis tools available to software engineers. Software Fault Tree Analysis (SFTA) is a technique that has been used successfully to investigate contributing causes to potential hazards in safety-critical applications. This paper further extends the adaptation of SFTA to product lines of systems by describing a software safety analysis tool called PLFaultCAT. PLFaultCAT is an interactive, partially-automated support tool to aid software engineers in the application of product-line software SFTA. The paper describes the integration of product-line SFTA and PLFaultCAT with the software development life cycle. The description includes the initial construction of the product-line SFTA as well as the automated derivation of software fault trees for product line members. The technique and tool are illustrated with a small case study throughout the paper.