Abstract:
The increasing level of complexity in systems creates a growing challenge
for engineers to design safe and reliable systems. The growing complexity can
lead to possible moments when situations occur that were unanticipated or were
not known that they could occur by designers and leave the system in an
undesirable state. This may happen if system designers were unable to identify the
failure state or if they failed to pass on known information to other designers.
This research aims to provide a systematic approach to identifying failure
states in complex systems and to improve the connection between the different
sides of development of the system by proposing a methodology of investigating
the failure states. The methodology identifies potential failure states as a system
executes a command and has designers examine them to make recommendations
into the severity and potential solutions to the failure state. The information is
organized into a single table that is passed over to other system developers and
used in the design of the other sub-systems. The table also serves as a record of
the analysis that can be used for reuse or future redesigns.
The benefits of the methodology are examined using the K10 rover
developed by NASA as an example. The K10 rover is analyzed to identify its
failure states as it executes a command. The identified failure states are analyzed
and the information gained is used to classify the failure state according to a
ranking scale developed for this research.
