Life-critical system

A life-critical system or safety-critical system is a system whose failure or malfunction may result in death or serious injury. Risks of this sort are usually handled with safety engineering.

Software engineering for life-critical systems is particularly difficult, but the avionics industry has succeeded in producing standard methods for producing life-critical avionics software. This is sometimes done using programmable logic controllers.

Table of contents

1 Examples of life-critical systems 1.1 Infrastructure 1.2 Medicine 1.3 Nuclear engineering 1.4 Recreation 1.5 Transportation 1.5.1 Automotive 1.5.2 Aviation 2 External links

Examples of life-critical systems

Infrastructure

• emergency services dispatch systems
• electricity generation, transmission and distribution
• telecommunications

Medicine

• heart-lung machines
• mechanical ventilation systems
• radiation therapy machines

Nuclear engineering

• nuclear reactor control systems

Recreation

• amusement rides
• parachutes

Transportation

Automotive

• airbag systems
• braking systems
• seat belts

Aviation

• air traffic control systems
• avionics, particularly fly-by-wire systems

External links

• An Example of a Life-Critical System