Dear Colleagues,

Modern embedded systems are becoming increasingly complex because of their use of various integrated components, technologies, and functionalities. The complexity of these hardware and software systems requires new appropriate processes, tools, and methodologies for analysis, design, and validation purposes. Maintaining the overall competitiveness of the design process with regard to cost and time-to-market constraints remains, of course, a key concern.

The failures of embedded systems used in industries such as aeronautics, automotive, railway, nuclear, or medical devices could lead to serious safety issues and catastrophic consequences. The design of these safety-critical systems is a complex process that calls for the integration of systems engineering methods and safety analysis to fulfill functional and non-functional requirements. Narrowing the gap between system design and safety assessment will help to improve consistency and reduce development time and late errors.  In addition, these increasingly connected and complex systems also must face cyberattacks, which often cause serious dysfunctions and undermine the security of such systems. The relationships between security and safety are thus at the heart of the current concerns of specialists in the field of complex embedded systems. One can no longer consider designing safe systems without ensuring that they are secure. For instance, a vulnerability may compromise the functional safety of an autonomous car; however, on the other hand, a safety constraint such as the introduction of redundant components or diagnostic ports can increase the attack surface of the system. The complexity of software and hardware components used in embedded systems has thus motivated the adoption of new approaches to anticipate security and safety problems. In particular, system designers have been advised to adopt an early modeling and validation approach against potential threats during the design phase to reduce the costs of error’s detected late and correction time.

Dr. Nga Nguyen
Dr. Lylia Alouache
Guest Editors

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• complex embedded systems
• safety
• security
• trust
• model-based analysis