Tarannom Parhizkar - Online Probabilistic Risk Assessment of Complex Marine Systems: Principles, Modelling and Applications

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This book provides a general framework for online risk assessment considering human, software, and hardware interactions in automated and autonomous complex systems, with particular focus on marine applications. There is a significant interest in industry, authorities, and academia on the prospects of complex autonomous systems. Much work focuses on technological developments and discussions on economic, legal, and safety implications. There has been less focus so far on risk assessment and modeling concerning the conceptualization, design, and, in particular on the safe operation of these systems.

The safe operation of automated and autonomous complex systems requires close coordination between human operators, organization, and the technical systems and components. Often, both the systems and human operators face dynamic decision-making conditions with incomplete information and little time to consider options. Sophisticated techniques and methodologies have been developed to analyze different complex systems, and advances have been made in fundamental issues. Most of the current techniques for risk assessment, however, largely rely on a static analysis of a complex system. Unfortunately, static analyses cannot capture the dynamic factors and feedback loops that influence the system behavior of automated and autonomous systems.

In recent years, simulation-based approaches have been proposed that capture dynamic interactions and couple the human, hardware, and software performance to provide a better prediction of hazardous events and evaluation of risks related to operator(s) and system behavior. So far, such methods have been mostly utilized for nuclear power plants and for space missions. There is a growing need for dynamic and online risk assessment tools capable of providing information about risk for decision support of automated and autonomous systems, for example, in the marine domain. This demand is due to the increase of autonomous functionality that is being incorporated, which makes systems more complex and risk assessment more challenging. Furthermore, trust and approval by authorities and the public require safe design and operation of the autonomous systems.

The main intended audiences of the book are marine, maritime and offshore petroleum industry professionals, aerospace industry professionals, nuclear power industry, consultants, authorities, researchers, and graduate students in the field of engineering, in particular for those interested in risk and reliability assessment of complex systems. The framework of this book could be used in the design of decision support tools to help operators make better decisions; for development of supervisory risk control and improved intelligence of autonomous systems, and generally, to improve complex systems safety.

The content of the book has been researched and developed by the authors over several years in different research and industry projects. A major leap forward, however, was achieved from 2018 to 2020 when Dr. Parhizkar was a postdoc at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).