Test-Driven Development , safety modeling

We are planning various activities to continue our research on software safety issues in medical systems. One possibility includes model-driven development (MDD) of software. Once a formal model is developed, test cases might be generated automatically, and model checking techniques could be applied. One might able to synthesize source code as has been accomplished in other domains (e.g. the nuclear industry). 

Future research work is to realize an ontology, and a formal information model, for traffic management and safety management within ITS. In order to understand parts needed to support our safety loop the ontology has to be investigated in the light of a simulation environment, model driven software development and tested at run time in an ITS station. To close the loop, diagnostic information collected at run time should be feed back into the simulation environment. 

This paper describes how safe systems are developed in a medical device company. The approach described uses a combination of model-driven analysis, model-driven design, model-driven test and model-driven safety analysis (see fig. 1). It is considered to be a best practice approach. When using concrete examples, the project of developing a new incubator system is used. 

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