Software-missing piece in the integrated diagnostics puzzle

It is noted that the maturity of software technologies, as they relate to integrated diagnostics, lags greatly behind hardware integrated diagnostics technologies. The authors present a case for advancing these types of software technologies. Software integrated diagnostics (SID) is defined as the subset of integrated diagnostics that concerns itself with the detection and isolation of errors in the operation of embedded software. It is recognized that errors in the operation of software may be the result of a number of causes, including requirements and design deficiencies, coding errors, hardware failures, or transient system effects. Within this context, SID concerns itself with two areas, detecting problems that manifest themselves in the software and isolating the source of the problems. The need to combine software and hardware failure isolation elevates SID to a system level function. The authors discuss an approach to developing SID technologies