A software fault tolerance method for safety-critical systems: effectiveness and drawbacks

An automatic software technique suitable for on-line detection of transient errors due to the effects of the environment (radiation, EMC,...) is presented. The proposed approach, particularly well suited for low-cost safety-critical microprocessor-based applications, has been validated through fault injection experiments and radiation testing campaigns. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach in terms of fault detection capabilities. Undetected faults have been analyzed to point out the limitations of the method.