An overview of fault tree analysis and its application in model based dependability analysis

Abstract

Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) is a well-established and well-understood technique, widely used for dependability evaluation of a wide range of systems. Although many extensions of fault trees have been proposed, they suffer from a variety of shortcomings. In particular, even where software tool support exists, these analyses require a lot of manual effort. Over the past two decades, research has focused on simplifying dependability analysis by looking at how we can synthesise dependability information from system models automatically. This has led to the field of modelbased dependability analysis (MBDA). Different tools and techniques have been developed as part of MBDA to automate the generation of dependability analysis artefacts such as fault trees. Firstly, this paper reviews the standard fault tree with its limitations. Secondly, different extensions of standard fault trees are reviewed. Thirdly, this paper reviews a number of prominent MBDA techniques where fault trees are used as a means for system dependability analysis and provides an insight into their working mechanism, applicability, strengths and challenges. Finally, the future outlook for MBDA is outlined, which includes the prospect of developing expert and intelligent systems for dependability analysis of complex open systems under the conditions of uncertainty.

A Comprehensive Technological Survey on Dependable Self-Managing CPS: The Decade of Researches on Correctness and Dependability

“…MDE tries to solve Q1 to Q5 in design period. One similar concept called model-based dependability assessment (MBDA) is introduced in [160].…”

“…The traditional dependability V&V methods are surveyed in [155][156][157][158][159][160][161][162]. These methods include Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) e. Another useful method to improve the dependability is the fault injection.…”

“…As a well-established and well-understood technique, FTA has various extensions for analyzing dynamic behaviors such as Dynamic Fault Tree (DFT) [159][160] for capturing the sequence dependent dynamic behavior with functional dependency gate and SPARE gate; Temporal Fault Trees (TFT) [159][160] for modeling temporal requirements with temporal logic and Pandora TFT [160,198]; Component fault trees (CFT) [159][160] for managing the complexity of modern systems by hierarchical decomposition of systems, and Hybrid Fault Tree Automaton [199]; Repairable Fault Trees [159] for analyzing the effect of repair policies, State event fault trees [160], etc. Petri net is another popular formal method for CPS V&V. The Definition and an object-oriented Petri nets formal modeling approach is proposed for High-Confidence CPS [200].…”

Model-Based Fault Analysis for Railway Traction Systems

“…However, lately some limitations have been identified in the application of these classical methodologies, especially when a complex control system has to be analyzed. Moreover, more and more manufacturers are using Model-based techniques [7] in the development of new systems, following the global tendency of Model-based engineering. Fault analysis is not an exception and several authors have proposed to use models to analyze the effects of faults [8][9][10].…”

Decision making in cloud environments: an approach based on multiple-criteria decision analysis and stochastic models

“…To provide uninterrupted cloud services, cloud managers must evaluate and improve dependability aspects of cloud infrastructures, such as availability and transaction loss; this is because users require a reasonable level of confidence in such infrastructures to efficiently plan and operate their business [19]. Some services may be considered mission-critical, and depending on the number of data operations involved, it may be essential to deploy redundancy strategies [24].…”