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300s School/ME 2150 - High Assurance Cyber-Physical Systems/ME 2150 - High-Assurance Cyber-Physical Systems Final Report.md

@@ -20,38 +20,73 @@ No one was injured, but the incident incurred high costs: replacing the CNC-mach
 
 ## So, how could rigorous digital engineering solve this problem?
 
-The fundamental problem with this testing set up was not a implementation
+The fundamental problem with this testing set up was not an implementation
 problem. The controller as it was programmed performed the fatigue test
-exactly as it was asked. Instead, this cyber-physical system failure starts 
+exactly as it was asked. This failure wasn’t an implementation bug— the controller did exactly what it was told. The real breakdown occurred at the design stage, where no one had explored all possible operating states or planned for assumption violations.
-before implementation and instead at the design stage. The designers of 
-this system never properly examined the possible states this system could
-experience, or provided an opportunity in their design for their assumptions
-to be violated. 
 
 Here's a simple example. One of the main causes of the failure was that 
-the control system could not reconcile that different pressure sensors may
+the control system did not anticipate wildly divergent sensor readings. 
-have wildly different readings. This makes sense for cushions that are 
+This makes sense for cushions that are  operating properly where load would
-operating properly where load would be evenly distributed, but cases
+be evenly distributed, but cases where this assumption is violated were never
-where this assumption is violated were never examined. In the case of this
+examined. In the case of this failure, this assumption was violated by a subpar
-failure, this assumption was violated by a subpar cushion, but what if a 
+cushion, but what if a  sensor was never connected to the system? 
-sensor was never connected to the system? Presumably, the testing fixture
+Presumably, the testing fixture would behave this way regardless of the 
-would behave this way regardless of the cushion being tested, and situations
+cushion being tested, and situations where sensors may be disconnected
-where sensors may disconnected briefly for cleaning or moving the fixture 
+briefly for cleaning or moving the fixture  may be extremely common 
-may be extremely common scenarios. 
+scenarios. 
 
-After taking the HACPS class, I think the designers of this testing fixutre
+After taking the HACPS class, I think the designers of this testing fixture
 could have made good use of a model checker like TLA+. An analysis of 
 testing system through a series of TLA+ modules could avoid these 
 disaster scenarios where sensors do not prompt correct control. One could
 do this analysis by examining what 'correct' behavior is:
 
 For the testing fixture as described, a couple things should ALWAYS 
-happen:
+happen (specifications):
 1. The sensors on the bottom of the buttocks should ALWAYS experience
-   more load than the sensors on the side of the buttocks
+   more load than the sensors on the side of the buttocks, except at low load
+   conditions where noise is the dominant signal.
 2. The sensors on the bottom of the buttocks should never have a difference
    in pressure from the side buttocks sensors greater than some value $\Delta P$. 
 3. Sensors across symmetries (left vs. right buttock) should also always have
    similar values to one another.
+If any of these statements are violated, testing should stop immediately.
 
-How do these 
+How do these specifications actually line up to some requirements? 
+Let's investigate:
+
+**The buttocks should not destroy themselves with excessive force.**
+This overarching requirement can be refined into some more specific
+requirements:
+
+1. **The testing rig should be safe if a sensor fails.**
+This requirement is satisfied by all of the above specifications, but especially
+specification number 3. Realistically, all cushions and buttocks will be fairly
+symmetric, so if for example a sensor fails and reports a bogus value,
+the complimenting sensor on the other buttock should throw a flag that
+this specification has been violated, and the testing should stop.
+
+Specification 1 also addresses this requirement. If one of the bottom senors 
+fails in a way that the measurement is much lower than expected, the other 
+side placement sensors will exceed the bottom sensor measurement and stop 
+the testing protocol.
+
+2. **A broken or absent cushion should stop testing immediately.**
+If a cushion fails or is not present, the bottom sensors will contact the testing
+rig frame and increase in pressure while the side sensors will not increase
+in value at all. The result is that the difference between the bottom and side
+sensors will increase dramatically with additional force. Specification 2 will 
+prevent failure through this mode, as the $\Delta P$ flag will be thrown and testing
+will stop.
+
+This analysis could be more rigorously defined and carried out using all 
+sensors and with more sophisticated logic in TLA+, along with actually 
+defining the controller logic that runs the test. Here, we've only discussed 
+failure conditions, but there is all sorts of logic in the real system that decides
+when the buttocks should descend, and when a new failure fatigue repetition
+begins. All of these behaviors can be modeled in a model checker like TLA+ 
+and compared against safety specifications to ensure that a failure like the
+one experienced is not possible from the design level.
+
+## AI Use Statement
+I used ChatGPT to help me brainstorm and refine the organization and wording of my report, including rephrasing complex paragraphs for clarity, as well as rephrasing my first assignment for conciseness. All final content decisions, technical details, and edits were made by me.