Safety analysis of an airbag system using probabilistic FMEA and probabilistic counterexamples

Failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) is a technique to reason about possible system hazards that result from system or system component failures. Traditionally, FMEA does not take the probabilities with which these failures may occur into account. Recently, this shortcoming was addressed by integrating stochastic model checking techniques into the FMEA process. A further improvement is the integration of techniques for the generation of counterexamples for stochastic models, which we propose in this paper. Counterexamples facilitate the redesign of a potentially unsafe system by providing information which components contribute most to the failure of the entire system. The usefulness of this novel approach to the FMEA process is illustrated by applying it to the case study of an airbag system provided by our industrial partner, the TRW Automotive GmbH.