Some verification tools and methods for airborne safety-critical software

Abstract

Airborne software, like many other kinds of embedded software, grows in complexity with each generation of equipment. Where the software supports safety-critical functions this can present severe verification problems. The scale of such software is often outside the scope of mathematically formal verification, and dissimilar software redundancy techniques may be inapplicable for performance reasons. A practical approach is to meet safety-critical criteria by procedurally formal verification in line with the Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics and the European Organisation for Civil Aviation Electronics common revised (1985) guidelines on the software aspects of certification of airborne systems, using a comprehensive automated test converage analysis and partition breach analysis system.