Why it matters
Every system fails eventually. What distinguishes a safety system is what it does while failing, and that behaviour has to be designed deliberately rather than inherited by accident.
Systems & architecture
Fail-safe
A fail-safe design ensures that when a component fails, the system moves to a safe state rather than an unsafe or unknown one.
How it works
The safety-critical function is given the fewest possible dependencies, and every non-critical dependency is made optional with a defined fallback. Failures should be loud rather than silent - a system that quietly stops monitoring is more dangerous than one that reports being broken.
Example
If a cloud analysis service is unreachable, the system falls back to threshold-only detection rather than waiting for a response.
In Alfa HazardX
Detection, display and buzzer run locally. If the AI layer is unavailable or unaffordable the deterministic path is unaffected; if the network drops, readings buffer and resend.
Read further
Related terms
- Local alarmA local alarm is an audible or visual warning produced by the sensing device itself, without depending on a network, server or remote service.
- Edge intelligenceEdge intelligence is processing and decision-making performed on the device that collects the data, rather than on a remote server.
- Deterministic analysisDeterministic analysis produces the same output for the same input every time, using explicit rules or arithmetic rather than a learned model.