Towards Feature-Oriented Fault Tree Analysis

In single product development, FTA is a common risk assessment technique. While several existing variability-aware extensions of FTA depend on the pruning of 150% models of fault trees for final product configuration, this paper proposes a feature-oriented extension of FTA with a stronger focus on the systematic reuse of fault propagation paths instead. We present an approach to create fault tree modules for features and feature interactions, which can be reused for the generation of different valid fault tree variants. As a consequence, the influence of features on hazards can be examined. Moreover, we employ a running example scenario throughout the paper that has been evaluated using a prototypical implementation to illustrate the feasibility of the presented approach.