A Dependability Estimation of Microprocessor-based Software under Memory Faults using Stochastic Activity Network (SAN)

In this work, the software behavior under memory faults in operation phase is modeled and simulated using the stochastic activity network, generalized stochastic Petri nets. This networks permit the representation of concurrency, timeliness, fault tolerance, and degradable performance of system and provide a means for determining the stochastic behavior of a complex system. We estimate the reliability of an application software in the digitized system in nuclear power plants and show the sensitivity of the software reliability to the major physical parameters which affect the software failure in normal operation phase. We found that the effects of the hardware faults on the software failure should be considered for predicting the software dependability accurately in operation phase.