FUNCTIONAL SECURITY ANALYSIS IN DRONES

Application of Standard EIC 61508 in the Development of Drones

Performing a functional safety analysis in different electrical, electronic, and electromechanical equipment (E / E / E) has become a common procedure in different industries and markets from the conception and design phase of a particular device or system in order to to ensure a safe development of it.

The drone sector should not be unfamiliar with this. Even though there is no standard or standard dedicated to this market in terms of functional safety, we do have some useful and adaptable standards in this concern.

IEC 61508 is, perhaps, the most important standard for different industries and includes a complete procedure related to the life cycle of the system in question: conception, development, testing, maintenance…) also provides a SIL level (safety integrity level)  which is referred to a relative level of risk mitigation provided by a security function, or to specify the target level for the associated risk reduction.

These SIL levels are calculated by means of a probabilistic analysis of the device that suggests the management of different concepts for which we will not go into detail, however, we can summarize that the most important thing is to specify an adequate failure probability for our system, in this case, our drone or associated E / E / E subsystem. This probability of failure (PFD, Probability of failure on demand) is related to each SIL level in the following way:

According to the functional safety analysis procedure, the hazards of a given system must be identified and analyzed through a risk analysis. This point has already been considered and recommended in the sector, for which we can identify a common point with the traditional standards of functional safety analysis. The mitigation of these risks should continue until their overall contribution to the hazard can be considered acceptable.