Fault Tree Analysis And Risk Mitigation Strategies For Autonomous Systems Via Statistical Model Checking

In order to assess the reliability of autonomous systems, fault tree analysis (FTA) technique is used extensively. Most of the traditional FTA approaches are based on simulation and often require extensive computing capabilities. This paper proposes a formal FTA approach that can investigate the probability of failure of autonomous systems. The proposed methodology takes advantage of both FTA and statistical model checking (SMC). In order to illustrate the proposed approach, the sources of communication failure in a fleet of UAVs are analyzed. After detecting the most critical causes of communication failure, several redundant architectures are examined to assess their potentials to mitigate the risks of system failure. The results illustrate that all of the investigated architectures are capable of mitigating the probability of failure of the fleet of UAVs under studies.