How STPA will propel safety analysis beyond its failure-bound paradigm

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How can you guarantee the safety of tomorrow’s complex cyber-physical systems?

The era of simple component failure analysis is over. Indeed, today, accidents in highly complex systems often originate from flawed software logic, unexpected human errors, or unsafe interactions between functionally intact components.

Faced with this new reality, traditional safety engineering methodologies, such as FMEA, FTA, and FHA, encounter new challenges. While they remain highly effective for evaluating component reliability,they struggle to systematically find non-failure-based hazards. Safety is no longer just a reliability problem; it is a dynamic control problem.

This white paper offers a practical approach to building a more robust safety capability. Discover how to propel safety analysis beyond its failure-bound paradigm by harmonising the top-down systemic insights of System-Theoretic Process Analysis (STPA) with the bottom-up quantitative verification of Model-Based Safety Analysis (MBSA).

  • Why traditional safety engineering must shift its focus from simple component reliability to understanding how interactions between system elements are managed and controlled.
  • The 4 systematic steps of STPA and its practical application to complex cyber-physical systems (like the AIDA drone) and AI-embedded components.
  • The idea of synergising STPA and MBSA for comprehensive safety assessment
STPA White Paper
  • Our novel ontology-driven integration framework: a guideline to systematically translate conceptual STPA loss scenarios into executable MBSA simulation conditions.
  • How to fully automate the assembly of Boolean logic required by MBSA solvers, eliminating the risks of manual transcription.
  • Quantitative validation of this methodology through concrete use cases, providing computational proof for abstract STPA hazards.
Download the White Paper

Who is this for?

This white paper is essential for decision-makers, System Safety Engineers, RAMS (Reliability, Availability, Maintainability, and Safety) Experts, and Systems Engineers working on complex aerospace, autonomous, or AI-embedded architectures.

Download our white paper to learn all about Airbus Protect’s vision of integrated system safety.

Get in touch to discover how we can support you in securing your critical and complex systems.

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