A Survey of Tool-supported Assurance Case Assessment Techniques

Abstract

Systems deployed in regulated safety-critical domains (e.g., the medical, nuclear, and automotive domains) are often required to undergo a stringent safety assessment procedure, as prescribed by a certification body, to demonstrate their compliance to one or more certification standards. Assurance cases are an emerging way of communicating safety, security, and dependability, as well as other properties of safety-critical systems in a structured and comprehensive manner. The significant size and complexity of these documents, however, makes the process of evaluating and assessing their validity a non-trivial task and an active area of research. Due to this, efforts have been made to develop and utilize software tools for the purpose of aiding developers and third party assessors in the act of assessing and analyzing assurance cases. This article presents a survey of the various assurance case assessment features contained in 10 assurance case software tools, all of which identified and selected by us via a previously conducted systematic literature review. We describe the various assessment techniques implemented, discuss their strengths and weaknesses, and identify possible areas in need of further research.