FASR: Automated Identification of Unsafe Control Actions in STPA

Fuente: arXiv
Enregistré dans:
Détails bibliographiques
Auteurs principaux: Dardik, Ian, She, Yining, Procter, Sam, Hanna, Keaton, Wrage, Lutz, Kang, Eunsuk
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2026
Sujets:
Accès en ligne:
Tags: Ajouter un tag
Pas de tags, Soyez le premier à ajouter un tag!
_version_ 1866918531101097984
author Dardik, Ian
She, Yining
Procter, Sam
Hanna, Keaton
Wrage, Lutz
Kang, Eunsuk
author_facet Dardik, Ian
She, Yining
Procter, Sam
Hanna, Keaton
Wrage, Lutz
Kang, Eunsuk
contents The System-Theoretic Process Analysis (STPA) is a well-established hazard analysis technique that has been applied to a wide range of safety-critical systems. Despite its popularity, there is relatively little automation support for STPA, and most of its steps are carried out manually by a human analyst, which can be time consuming and error prone. This paper investigates the potential use of model-based engineering and formal methods to assist human analysts in efficiently and accurately carrying out STPA. The proposed tool, called FASR (Formalizing and Automating STPA with Robustness), enables automated, complete identification of unsafe control actions (UCAs), leveraging recent advances in robustness analysis to identify UCAs as undesirable deviations in the controller's actions. The use of the tool is demonstrated on a case study involving a Braking System Control Unit (BSCU) in an avionics system. As a preliminary exploration of the potential benefits and limitations of the tool, the paper reports on a user study involving nine participants with varying backgrounds in STPA, model-based engineering, and formal methods; the study found that most participants considered the tool a useful aid in identifying UCAs, while suggesting improvements that would make a tool such as FASR usable and applicable to a wider range of systems and analysts.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_30697
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle FASR: Automated Identification of Unsafe Control Actions in STPA
Dardik, Ian
She, Yining
Procter, Sam
Hanna, Keaton
Wrage, Lutz
Kang, Eunsuk
Cryptography and Security
Software Engineering
The System-Theoretic Process Analysis (STPA) is a well-established hazard analysis technique that has been applied to a wide range of safety-critical systems. Despite its popularity, there is relatively little automation support for STPA, and most of its steps are carried out manually by a human analyst, which can be time consuming and error prone. This paper investigates the potential use of model-based engineering and formal methods to assist human analysts in efficiently and accurately carrying out STPA. The proposed tool, called FASR (Formalizing and Automating STPA with Robustness), enables automated, complete identification of unsafe control actions (UCAs), leveraging recent advances in robustness analysis to identify UCAs as undesirable deviations in the controller's actions. The use of the tool is demonstrated on a case study involving a Braking System Control Unit (BSCU) in an avionics system. As a preliminary exploration of the potential benefits and limitations of the tool, the paper reports on a user study involving nine participants with varying backgrounds in STPA, model-based engineering, and formal methods; the study found that most participants considered the tool a useful aid in identifying UCAs, while suggesting improvements that would make a tool such as FASR usable and applicable to a wider range of systems and analysts.
title FASR: Automated Identification of Unsafe Control Actions in STPA
topic Cryptography and Security
Software Engineering
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.30697