EXTENDING SYSTEMS ENGINEERING FOR SAFETY-CRITICAL DEFENCE APPLICATIONS

Defence sector applications are often characterised by a high level of complexity: in the technical systems involved, in their management and supply chain arrangements, and in the dynamic nature of the risks involved. ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288 is well established as a standard that provides a common set of life cycle processes and terminology for engineering complex systems. However, it takes a generic approach that does not directly address the needs of systems with a safety impact. In contrast, safety-specific standards like IEC 61508 provide a well-known framework for the functional safety of electrical, electronic, and programmable electronic safety-related systems, but do not address the complexity commonly found in systems in the defence sector.

In IEC 63187-1, the International Electrotechnical Commission is drafting a new standard to provide a safety framework for defence applications. It uses modern systems engineering principles that build on ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288, extending it with requirements to make it appropriate for critical systems in the defence sector. This paper discusses how IEC 63187-1 uses ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288 to achieve the goals of system safety, why this approach was adopted, the expected benefits and some of the impacts of designing the new safety framework this way.