The University of Queensland's technology transfer company UniQuest Limited today signed a major contract with the Australian Defence Department.
The two-year contract, valued in the order of $420,000, will help to increase the assurance of safety for Australian Defence projects that involve safety critical systems, and assist the Department's work of formulating a consistent, co-ordinated and managed approach to the procurement of such systems.
Researchers in the University's Software Verification Research Centre (SVRC) Dr Peter Lindsay, Brenton Atchison, Dr Axel Wabenhorst, David Tombs, Andrew Hussey and Dr Graeme Smith will undertake the work. The SVRC is a Special Research Centre of the Australian Research Council, established in 1991 at the University of Queensland.
Dr Lindsay, who is assistant director of the SVRC, said that the researchers would provide expert advice on safety to a number of major Defence projects that involve safety critical systems.
"As systems become more complex and make increased use of information technology (for example, to integrate different systems, or to automate critical decisions), there is increasingly urgent need for new and improved assurance techniques and standards suited to the new technologies," Dr Lindsay said.
The SVRC will review and enhance the Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO) -developed standard Def (Aust) 5679 on procurement of computer-based safety critical systems. The contract covers further development of the standard to resolve outstanding technical issues and to improve its applicability, as well as assisting defence projects in applying the standard.
Dr Tony Cant, editor-in-chief of the Def (Aust) 5679 Standard, and senior research scientist in the Trusted Computer Systems Group within the DSTO, said that the SVRC would bring valuable expertise to the technical problems of assuring safety for computer-based systems.
"A number of current and new Australian Defence systems are safety-critical in nature: faults in system behaviour could lead to injury or death," he said. "It is vital that such systems be developed and assessed as rigorously as possible."
"I believe that the SVRC work under this contract will greatly enhance Australia's defence capability."
Dr Lindsay said the DSTO standard represented a significant improvement over existing national and international standards in Australian defence applications. The standard is already being applied successfully in the Navy's NULKA missile decoy project, and will be applied in a number of other Defence Acquisition Organisation (DAO) projects.
It has also attracted civil interest, especially because it is easier to comprehend and to begin to apply than some other complex standards.
"In our opinion, it has the potential to be among the foremost standards for safety-critical systems in the world," he said.
The Director of the Defence Department's Software Acquisition Reform Program, David Marshall, said the Department was pleased to be associated with the Software Verification Research Centre. The SVRC was selected following an open competition on the basis of its high quality, competitive proposal and depth of expertise in safety critical systems.
The SVRC focuses on a systems approach to developing methods and tools for software verification and validation. It has a world-class research program in the areas of formal methods, real-time systems, object-orientation, logic programming, testing methods, and hazard and risk analysis. Its technology transfer activities are designed to enable industry to meet international standards and expectations for software and computer-system reliability, particularly in the case of critical systems.
The Centre is involved in industrial consulting and training as well as postgraduate teaching and research training.
Current clients include the Defence Science Technology Organisation; British Aerospace Australia; Royal Australian Navy; Foxboro Australia; Airservices Australia; the New South Wales Road Traffic Authority; and Queensland Rail.
Researchers are working on studies ranging from verification and validation of the Hong Kong underground rail environmental control system to independent evaluation of safety of the NULKA missile decoy system.
For further information, contact:
Dr Lindsay, telephone 07 3365 2005, email: pal@it.uq.edu.au
Dr Cant, telephone 08 8259 6700, email: Tony.Cant@dsto.defence.gov.au
