UML-based risk analysis- Application to a medical robot

Abstract

Medical robots can perform complex tasks and share their working area with humans. Therefore, they belong to safety critical systems. In nowadays development process, safety is often managed by the way of dependability techniques. We propose a new global approach, based on the risk concept in order to guide designers along the safety analysis of such complex systems. Safety depends on risk management activity, which core is risk analysis. This one consists in three steps : system definition, hazard identification and risk estimation. We first propose the use of UML (Unified Modeling Language) as the description language. Then, for the next steps, interactions of UML and risk analysis techniques such as FMECA (Failure Mode, E#ects and Criticality Analysis) are studied. As an illustration of its potentiality, the proposed approach has been applied to the case study of a system for robotic tele-echography (ultrasound scan examination).