Reliability Engineering in a Time of Rapidly Converging Technologies

The convergence of technologies is happening across various aspects, such as communication, computing, medicine, and transportation. The smartphone is a perfect example of convergence, packing features, such as a camera, GPS, artificial intelligence, and Internet connectivity into one sleek device. Autonomous driving is another good example. In a time of rapidly converging technologies, reliability engineering must take into account the potential for cyber threats, the need for cyber trust, the importance of cyber security, and the criticality of cyber resilience. In this way, reliability engineers can ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of computer systems and networks in the face of evolving threats and changing technologies. In this article, we introduce the challenges and current progress of reliability engineering in emerging technologies, including practices and applications of cyber trust and security, AI-empowered autonomous driving systems, modern mobile networks, blockchains and distributed ledger technologies, prognostic and health management, integrated circuit and hardware, and enterprise cybersecurity and threat hunting.