Risk assessment in ensuring aircraft on-board systems safety

A method of risk assessment of an aircraft on-board information system is being considered, which allows ensuring reliability and safety of such a complex system in operation. This technique implies application of combined mathematical tools to estimate the risks that complex systems/items are being exposed to. The existing risk assessment methods are not flexible enough to solve the complex task of enhancing comprehensive safety of an aircraft information system (AIS) due to difficulty in unifying the criteria for estimating the degree of hazard in reference to all safety concepts. Currently, risks severity and mechanism for the development of one undesirable event (risk event) into more complex forms during technical operation of an aircraft items/system are not being considered. However, the method proposed in this article intends to become a catalyst for generation of new criteria on a unified basis for estimating safety of such a technical complex system such as AIS, since it contains three-component risk parameters. I.e. the risk for threats from violators (cases of unlawful interference (UI)), vulnerabilities (functional hazards that contribute to UI and its development in a system) and loss (set of criteria that evaluates consequences of UI). As a result, these criteria and parameters of threecomponent safety will allow us to find a new approach to determining the complex risk to which important aircraft systems, such as on-board aircraft information systems, are exposed. This article presents a method for determining risk that takes into account the three-component safety concept. Together, these components will make it possible to evaluate technical systems hazard degree, taking into account their sophistication. The information provided in this paper by the authors is a scientific hypothesis designed to draw attention of the scientific community to the problem of lack of methods for evaluating multicomponent risks in such a system as AIS. The article presents the basic criteria for evaluating a complex three-component risk; they are not sufficient for the full formation of new criteria for evaluating the safety of a complex aircraft system/item and requires clarification of their parameters. Thus, this work is not absolute as a complete solution to the complex problem of enhancing comprehensive safety of AIS, but only offers a methodology for unifying the three safety components to evaluate complex risk.

risk, safety, on-board information system, technical operation process

1. Fedosov, E.A., Chuyanov, G.A., Kosyanchuk, V.V. and Selvesyuk, N.I. (2013). Future image of technology and the development of the aircraft onboard equipment. Scientific-Technical Journal "Polyot" ("Flight"), no. 8, pp. 41–52. (in Russian)

2. Belov, E.B., Los, V.P., Meshcheryakov, R.V. and Shelupanov, A.A. (2006). Ocnovy informatsionnoy bezopasnosti: uchebnoye posobiye dlya VUZov [Information security fundamentals: Tutorial]. Moscow: Goryachaya liniya-Telekom, 544 p. (in Russian)

3. Demin, V.V. and Suvorov, E.V. (1996). Integrirovannaya sistema informatsionnoy bezopasnosti [Integrated information security system]. Seti i sistemy svyazi, no. 9, pp. 127–133. (in Russian)

4. Biesecker, C. Boeing 757 testing shows airplanes vulnerable to hacking. Aviation explorer. Available at: https://www.aviationtoday.com/2017/11/08/boeing-757-testing-showsairplanes-vulnerable-hacking-dhs-says/ (accessed: 11.05.2020).

5. Alhabeeb, M., Almuhaideb, A., Le, P.D. and Srinivasan, B. (2010). Information security threats classification pyramid. Proceedings of the 24th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Information Networking and Applications Workshops, pp. 208–213.

6. Strohmeier, M., Schäfer, M., Pinheiro, R., Lenders, V. and Martinovic, I. (2017). On perception and reality in wireless air traffic communication security. IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, vol. 18, no. 6, pp. 1338–1357.

7. Jacob, J.M. (2004). High assurance security and safety for digital avionics. The 23rd Digital Avionics Systems Conference (IEEE Cat. No.04CH37576), Salt Lake City, UT, USA, pp. 8. DOI: 10.1109/DASC.2004.1390776

8. Sun, J.Z., Chen, D., Li, C.Y. and Yan, H.S. (2018). Integration of scheduled structural health monitoring with airline maintenance program based on risk analysis. Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part O: Journal of Risk and Reliability, vol. 232, issue 1, pp. 92–104. DOI: 10.1177/1748006X17742777

9. Liao, N., Li, F. and Song, Y. (2010). Research on real-time network security risk assessment and forecast. International Conference on Intelligent Computation Technology and Automation (ICICTA), Changsha, China, vol. 3, pp. 84–87.

10. Jungwirth, P., Chan, P., Barnett, T. and Badawy, A.H. (2018). Cyber defense through hardware security. Disruptive Technologies in Information Sciences. International Society for Optics and Photonics, vol. 10652, pp. 106520P. DOI: 10.1117/12.2302805

11. Ortalo, R., Deswarte, Y. and Kaaniche, M. (1999). Experimenting with quantitative evaluation tools for monitoring operational security. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, vol. 25, no. 5, pp. 633–650. DOI: 10.1109/32.815323

12. Ben Mahmoud, M.S., Larrieu, N. and Pirovano, A. (2011). A risk propagation based quantitative assessment methodology for network security-aeronautical network case study. 2011 Conference on Network and Information Systems Security, La Rochelle, pp. 1–9. DOI: 10.1109/SARSSI.2011.5931372

13. Barlow, R.E and Proschan, F. (1975). Importance of system components and fault tree events. Stochastic Processes and their Applications, vol. 3, issue 2, pp. 153–173. DOI: 10.1016/0304-4149(75)90013-7

14. Barlow, R.E and Proschan, F. (1981). Statistical theory of reliability and life testing.probability models. Silver Springs, MD, 290 p.

15. Goncharenko, A. (2018). Development of a theoretical approach to the conditional optimization of aircraft maintenance preference uncertainty. Aviation, vol. 22, no. 2, pp. 40–44. DOI: 10.3846/aviation.2018.5929

16. Obadimu, S.O., Karanikas, N. and Kourousis, K.I. (2020). Development of the minimum equipment list: Current practice and the need for standardisation. Aerospace, vol. 7, issue 1, 7. Available at: https://www.mdpi.com/2226-4310/7/1/7 (accessed 3.05.2020). DOI: 10.3390/aerospace7010007

17. Chuyanov, G.A., Kosyanchuk, V.V., Selvesyuk, N.I. and Zybin, E.Yu. (2014). Advanced avionics equipment on the basis of second generation integrated modular avionics. 29th Congress of the International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences, ICAS 2014, 6 p.

18. Zubkov, B.V. (1997). Metodologicheskiye osnovy analiza i otsenki bezopasnosti poletov i letnoy godnosti vozdushnykh sudov (teoriya i praktika) [Methodological bases of analysis and evaluation of the aircraft flight safety and airworthiness (theory and practice)]. Moscow: MGTU GA, 1997. 68 p. (in Russian)

19. Zubkov, B.V. and Anikin, N.V. (1993). Aviatsionnoye tekhnicheskoye obespecheniye bezopasnosti poletov [Aviation technical maintenance of flight safety]. Moscow: Vozdushnyy transport, 280 p. (in Russian)

20. Zubkov, B.V. and Sharov, V.D. (2010). Teoriya i praktika opredeleniya riskov v aviapredpriyatiyakh pri razrabotke sistemy upravleniya bezopasnostyu poleta [Theory and practice of determining risks in aviation enterprises during the flight safety management system development]. Moscow: MGTU GA, 196 p. (in Russian)

21. Zybin, E.Yu., Kosyanchuk, V.V. and Selvesyuk, N.I. (2016). Elektrifikatsiya i intellektualizatsiya - osnovnyye tendentsii razvitiya energokompleksa vozdushnykh sudov [Electrification and intellectualization are the main trends in the development of the aircraft power complex]. Aviatsionnyye sistemy, no. 5, pp. 45–51. (in Russian)

22. Deng, Q.C., Santos, B.F. and Curran, R. (2020). A practical dynamic programming based methodology for aircraft maintenance check scheduling optimization. European Journal of Operational Research, vol. 281, issue 2, pp. 256–273. DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2019.08.025

23. Batuwangala, E., Silva, J. and Wild, G. (2018). The regulatory framework for safety management systems in airworthiness organisations. Aerospace, vol. 5, issue 4, 117 p. Available at: https://www.mdpi.com/2226-4310/5/4/117 (accessed 7.06.2020). DOI: 10.3390/aerospace5040117

24. Stadnicka, D., Arkhipov, D., Battaia, O. and Chandima Ratnayake, M.C. (2017). Skills management in the optimization of aircraft maintenance processes. 20th IFAC World Congress, vol. 50, issue 1, pp. 6912–6917. DOI: 10.1016/j.ifacol.2017.08.1216