I’ve written previously about how the world of safety engineering is slowly coming to grips with the realisation that risk is no longer linear (and probably never has been) – especially with the advent of autonomous systems.

Safety engineering has historically focussed on acute harm – an immediate, impactful mishap if you like.  We are still (largely) yet to consider the

In the discipline of Safety Engineering (indeed ALL engineering disciplines) it is vital that all stakeholders share a common, and explicitly understood language. This language, and its lexicon must be unambiguous if we are to accurately, succinctly, and explicitly state ‘who needs to do what, when and why’. By doing so, in turn we can explicitly define ‘what they need,

Which makes the ‘safer’ decisions – a human or a machine, and is that even the right question? My main research area for the AAIP is assuring the safety of decision-making made by Autonomous Systems (AS), and I’ve recently published a paper on a technique to assess how this can be done.

As part of my research, I’m currently trying to

This paper from Richard Hawkins, John McDermid, and me is being presented at SafeComp 22 in Munich. Please do come along to see me present our work. We’ll update the paper and the link to the camera-ready version once the conference proceedings have been release. For now, enjoy…

Abstract

We characterise an autonomous system as one that has the

We’ll be presenting our paper on ‘Analysing the Safety of Decision-Making in Autonomous Systems’ later this year at Safecomp 2022 in Munich (which we’re absolutely STOKED about by the way!).  In the paper (sorry, no peeking until then) we analyse how we can assure the safety of Autonomous System (AS) decision-making.  Whilst we’re excited to explain our Decision Safety Analysis

Introduction

One of the significant challenges of assuring the safety of Robotics and Autonomous Systems (RAS) concerns the interactions between the RAS and its environment (including variables such as the expected weather conditions, light levels, users, other actors, and the built environment etc.). Each interaction could manifest in a novel/unanticipated situation, and these interactions may require an appropriate action to be

“Many who came before you have tried and failed” said someone famous, somewhere, once. The road towards the retrospective application of safety standards is fraught with danger, and beware the temptresses and sirens lurking within the standards who seek to lure you into the crushing depths of frustration with the mirage of simplicity.

Which Safety Standards?

With the metaphors now suitably expunged,

As we continue to research the safety of autonomous systems, we constantly evaluate the efficacy of existing safety engineering techniques.  So, what’s wrong with traditional safety engineering techniques such as HAZOP, FHA, FMECA, and even SHARD and STPA?  The short answer is probably nothing.  There is probably a lot wrong with their application, however.

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