Confidence Assessment Framework for Safety Arguments

Rui Wang, Jérémie Guiochet, Gilles Motet

Abstract: Confidence in safety critical systems is often justified by safety arguments. The excessive complexity of systems nowadays introduces more uncertainties for the arguments reviewing. This paper proposes a framework to support the argumentation assessment based on experts’ decision and confidence in the decision for the lowest level claims of the arguments. Expert opinion is extracted and converted in a quantitative model based on Dempster-Shafer theory. Several types of argument and associated formulas are proposed. A preliminary validation of this framework is realized through a survey for safety experts.