Safety analysis integration in a SysML-based complex system design process

Model-based system engineering is an efficient approach to specifying, designing, simulating and validating complex systems. This approach allows errors to be detected as soon as possible in the design process, and thus reduces the overall cost of the product. Uniformity in a system engineering project, which is by definition multidisciplinary, is achieved by expressing the models in a common modeling language such as SysML. This paper presents an approach to integrate safety analysis in SysML at early stages in the design process of safety-critical systems. Qualitative analysis is performed through functional as well as behavioral safety analysis and strengthened by formal verification method. This approach is applied to a real-life avionic system and contributes to the integration of formal models in the overall safety and systems engineering design process of complex systems.