Special Forces operatives often place explosives to destroy enemy assets. They must be a safe distance from the ordnance before it can detonate. Different devices can be used to trigger the detonation safely:

• Time Delayed Firing Devices
• Radio Frequency Detonators
• Infrared Firing Devices
• others

We were hired to perform detailed System Safety Assessment on many of these devices, often presenting our findings to the SSSTRP. Our depth of understanding safety-critical software design, implementation, and testing was critical to accurately assessing the software’s contribution to system safety Risk.

In order to assess the safety Risk, we studied the devices’:

• Electronic schematics
• Every line of software code
• Intended and possible uses
• Training procedures
• Operational and storage environments

We dive deep: determining if the microprocessor stack can ever overflow or underflow, calculating critical hardware component failure rates, and carefully examining the system’s transitions between various modes (power on/off, sleep, armed, etc.) (See also Critical Analyses.)

Our attention to the small, critical details, combined with our scope of the entire system in its environment helps us get Safety Board approval quickly!

See also: Immediate Safety Board Approval