On self-checking software design

The authors explain problems due to faults in software and suggest techniques based on the concept of self-checking for increasing fault-tolerance in software design. The goal of self-checking is to guarantee that the erroneous output of a circuit is not a valid codeword if there is a fault, permanent or transient, in the circuit, or if the circuit receives a noncodeword. Extending the concept to the software module level would mean having the ability to determine online whether the output data produced by the module meet the module´s output specifications. As the concept of self-checking software is logically the same as that of hardware, various hardware approaches should be extensible to software. Emphasis should be placed on developing a set of standards for normal behavior which will enhance self-checking capability and on evaluating the cost-effectiveness of different self-checking techniques, with the objective of developing a formal methodology for implementing self-checking software systems