Assessing Robustness of Smart Systems via Multi-domain Analog Fault Simulation

Smart systems contain digital and analog components of several physical domains, e.g., electrical and mechanical. During the design phase, the fault injection, which checks the system functionality following the guidelines of ISO standard 26262, enhances the system's robustness. Unfortunately, fault injection and simulation on the analog side are i) not fully standardized compared to their digital counterparts, ii) highly domain-dependent, and iii) performed separately from the digital. This article proposes to improve the design of smart systems by generating faulty scenarios through analog fault injection across several physical domains. By exploiting these faulty scenarios, it is possible to improve the robustness of the analog part and simultaneously improve the quality of the digital part that controls the system functionality.