Catherine Menon

My interests are in the area of autonomous system safety, particularly in how safety, security, ethics and trust can be managed.

My research looks at the use of software in safety-critical systems, particularly autonomous systems. I'm currently interested in the interaction between safety requirements, security requirements, ethical imperatives and trust constraints in autonomous vehicles (AVs). The trolley problem is a good illustration of some of the ethical complexities with AVs.

More generally, the safety-critical systems I've worked with have mostly been in the defence and nuclear sector. There are sector-specific guidance documents for the development of these systems, as well as more generally applicable guidance (IEC 61508 , R2P2 ). A general requirement for these systems is that a safety argument be constructed, to demonstrate that the system is safe for use.

Safety and security requirements are often not aligned with each other, with security considerations requiring system properties and development techniques that are incompatible with safety and vice versa. I'm interested in how we can manage these requirements without conflict, as well as how we can express the ethical imperatives behind them.

More information is available on my homepage at http://homepages.herts.ac.uk/~cm17acs/

• Member of the IET Technical Committee for the Safety and Security Code of Practice
• Member of the IEC SC7 Autonomous Systems Study Group 
• Member of the Safety Critical Systems Club Safety of Autonomous Systems Working Group
• Program Committee member for the International Cross-Industry Safety Committee