A Virtual Fault Injection Framework for Reliability-Aware Software Development

Abstract

Ever more dependable embedded systems are built with commercial off-the-shelf hardware components that are not intended for highly reliable applications. Consequently, software-based fault tolerance techniques have to maintain a safe operation despite underlying hardware faults. In order to efficiently develop fault tolerant software, fault injection is needed in early development stages. However, common fault injection approaches require manufactured products or detailed hardware models. Thus, these techniques are typically not applicable if software and hardware providers are separate vendors. Additionally, the rise of third-party OTS software components limits the means to inject faults. In this paper, we present a virtual fault injection framework that simulates safety-standard aligned fault models and supports OTS software components as well as widely-used embedded processors such as ARM cores. Additionally, we show how to integrate the framework into various software development stages. Finally, we illustrate the practicability of the approach by exemplifying the integration of the framework in the development of an industrial safety-critical system.