Safe-RE: a Safety Requirements Metamodel Based on Industry Safety Standards

Context: The development of Safety-Critical Systems (SCS) requires an adequate understanding of safety terms to avoid the specification of poor, incomplete or unclear safety requirements. However, there are some misunderstandings, mostly by requirements engineers, about the definition of such concepts. Hence, integration of safety concerns in the Requirements Engineering (RE) and a common nomenclature is necessary to improve the specification of these systems. Objective: To fill this gap, this paper presents Safe-RE, a safety requirements metamodel based on industry safety standards whose aim is to support the specification of safety-related concepts in the RE process. Method: We rely on safety standards as a basis for our work since companies must follow them to have their systems certified. Results: To illustrate the Safe-RE metamodel usage, we applied its concepts in an insulin infusion pump system. Conclusions: We hope that Safe-RE can contribute to improving the elicitation and specifications of such systems and therefore, reducing accidents and safety-related catastrophes. We also discuss some benefits we envision of using the metamodel, its limitations, and open issues.