A safety critical system is one that must function correctly to avoid human injury, human death, damage to property, financial loss, damage to the natural environment, or devastating systemic effects (such as a catastrophic drop in stock market prices). A system is judged to be safety critical when its use involves risk (a potential that a mishap could occur, with severe consequences). Most safety-critical systems are designed to assure the safe use of systems involving a hazard, a state or condition in which unsafe use of the system will inevitably result in a mishap; for example, a train moving at high speed poses a hazard. Most hazards are caused by the use of potentially dangerous or lethal amounts of energy, such as the potential kinetic energy of a train moving at high speed. See availability, fault tolerance, hazard, mishap, risk.
Technipages Explains Safety-Critical System
Safety critical systems (SCS) are systems designed with the intent of curbing the effects of an accident from a hazardous event. This can be implemented in the aviation industry, the medical profession, nuclear testing, even the Financial sector, as there could be deaths stemming from financial loss too. It is an application where human safety depends on the correct usage of the software program. The software or the hardware must not contribute to the cause of the accident or escalate the accident, which is usually unsafe.
Safety critical systems are heavily dependent on computers, so it is up to these computers to ensure that no failure occurs in the usage of these systems, a failure in such system could trigger abnormal directional movements. The most valued property of the system is that it is dependable and dependability shows the users trust in that system.
The dependability of the system hinges on the ability of the system to deliver services when required, as the services are specified, and the ability of the system to protect itself from intrusion
Safety critical systems make use of electrical programming technologies which interact with mechanical systems and a human interface for interaction.
Common Uses of Safety-Critical System
- A basic safety critical system will have electrical programming attached to a mechanical system which gives room for modification of the system with a human interface
- A safety critical system depends on its ability to handle the system before, during and after an accident
- A safety critical system can now be implemented in the financial sector as financial losses could cause physical harm or death
Common Misuses of Safety-Critical System
- A safety critical system guarantees that there will be no loss of lives in every system it is installed
- In a safety critical system, human safety does not depend on the correct usage of the software, it depends on chance.
