Certification of Highly Complex Safety-Related Systems

The BIA has now 15 years of experience with the certification of complex electronic systems for safety-related applications in the machinery sector. Using the example of machining centres, this presentation will show the systematic procedure for verifying and validating control systems using Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) and microcomputers for safety functions.

One section will describe the control structure of machining centres with control systems using “ integrated safety.” A diverse redundant architecture combined with crossmonitoring and forced dynamisation is explained. In the main section the steps of the systematic certification procedure are explained showing some results of the certification of drilling machines. Specification reviews, design reviews with test case specification, statistical analysis, and walk-throughs are the analytical measures in the testing process. Systematic tests based on the test case specification, Electro Magnetic Interference (EMI) and environmental testing, and site acceptance tests on the machines are the testing measures for validation.

A complex software driven system is always undergoing modification. Most of the changes are not safety-relevant but this has to be proven. A systematic procedure for certifying software modifications is presented in the last section of the paper.