Effectiveness of Software Metrics on Reliability for Safety Critical Real-Time Software

Abstract

Safety critical software is a key component of any critical system, and whenever there is a failure in this software, the system malfunctions with effect on safety of life or mission. Reliability is one of the quality factors and performance evaluator for this critical software. High reliability is expected of such software in its design, development and maintenance in order to increase the quality of the software for the system. Reliability metrics are derived for this kind of software during the planning phase, and enhancement of reliability metrics is achieved during the design and development phase. When the software is being designed, the reliability metrics are taken as the factors of foundation on which the software is built. In this paper, the software metrics which form the basis for proving their effectiveness on reliability for airborne engine control safety critical software are described. Development process based on these metrics not only influenced the reliability enhancement of the critical software but also improved the performance and efficiency of the embedded real-time system.