Automated Synthesis of Timed Failure Propagation Graphs

Benjamin Bittner, Marco Bozzano, Alessandro Cimatti

Abstract: Timed Failure Propagation Graphs (TFPGs) are used in the design of safety-critical systems as a way of modeling failure propagation, and to evaluate and implement diagnostic systems. TFPGs are mostly produced manually, from a given dynamic system of greater complexity. In this paper we present a technique to automate the construction of TFPGs. It takes as input a set of failure mode and discrepancy nodes and builds the graph on top of them, based on an exhaustive analysis of all system behaviors. The result is a TFPG that accurately represents the sequences of failures and their effects as they appear in the system model. The proposed approach has been implemented on top of state-of-the-art symbolic model-checking techniques, and thoroughly evaluated on a number of synthetic and industrial benchmarks.