Safety is an important issue in the use of computer systems, and particularly in safety-critical applications. However, it is generally investigated in static systems, and therefore the resulting solutions do not function as well in the face of dynamic changes.

This paper deals with conditional safety certificates, and their effectiveness at runtime in open adaptive systems. The main problem to overcome is that safety is not modular, although it integrates many components. Additional preconditions are necessary to guarantee safety. To illustrate their approach, the authors present a few solutions, together with examples and case studies. The approach is similar to programming by contracts.

The problem investigated in this paper is at the intersection of two different research communities: the adaptive systems community and the safety engineering community. It will be interesting to see how this approach matures, which it will have to do to be accepted and used by certification experts.