Criteria for software to safety-critical complex certifiable systems development

Nowadays there is an actual problem in aviation industry - how to make the development of complex safety-critical systems certifiable according to international and domestic standards and regulations like DO-178C, DO-254, ARP 4754A, ARP 4761 etc. In the article configuration management process from the development lifecycle of DO-178C is considered as the main source of criteria for the development tool selection. Selected criteria can be applied to software tool, which supports entire development lifecycle of aviation software, as well as to software tools supporting some individual lifecycle processes. The activities of configuration management process provide work with all project lifecycle data, its storage, integrity, security, manageability and information support for data exchange between the remaining lifecycle processes, maintenance of the history of changes etc. Compliance with the principles of the configuration management process allows project managers to control development, ensure the required quality and reliability of the product; also, its certifiability and the necessary level of confidence in security, reduce financial and time development costs. As example of using criteria one of the most widely known in industry software tool for requirements development and management was analyzed for compliance with the chosen criteria.

DO-178C, qualification requirements 178C, software development, software analysis, software choosing, certifiable systems, complex systems, complex systems development, avionics, on-board equipment, lifecycle processes, lifecycle, configuration management, system engineering

1. Software Considerations in Airborne Systems and Equipment Certification (RTCA DO-178B), 1992.

2. Software Considerations in Airborne Systems and Equipment Certification (RTCA DO-178C), 2011.

3. Design Assurance Guidance for Airborne Electronic Hardware (RTCA DO-254), 2000.

4. Software Tool Qualification Considerations (RTCA DO-330), 2011.

5. Aerospace recommended practice. Guidelines for development civil aircraft and systems (SAE ARP 4754A), 2010

6. Guidelines and Methods for Conducting the Safety Assessment Process on Civil Airborne Systems and Equipment (SAE ARP 4761), 1996

7. The Order of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation of March 31, 2015 № 663 “About the approval of the industry plan of actions for import substitution in branch of civil aircraft industry of the Russian Federation” (with changes and additions)

8. Gorelits N.K., Peskov E.V., Requirements management as efficiency measure for software development in aviation industry. Sbornik trudov VIII Mezhdunarodnoy konferentsii “IT-STANDART 2017” [Proc. of VIII International conference “IT-Standard 2017”], Moscow, 2017, pp.105-113, ISBN 978-5-98597-346-4 (in Russian)

9. Qualification requirements part 178C, IAC, 2014 (in Russian)

10. M.A.Saburov, Yu.A.Solodelov, N.K.Gorelits. Development of the certifiable avionics software by the example of JetOS real time operation system. Navigatsiya, navedenie i upravlenie letatel’nymi apparatami: tezisy dokladov Tret’ey Vserossiyskoy nauchno-tekhnicheskoy konferencii [Proceedings of Third All-Rus. Scient.-Techical Konf. “Navigation, guidance and control aircraft”], Moscow, 2017, pp.241-243, ISBN: 978-5-93728-133-3 (in Russian)

11. System engineering — System life cycle processes (ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288:2015), 2015

12. Koverninsky I.V., Kan A.V., Volkov V.B., Popov Yu.S., Gorelits N.K. Practical experience of software and system engineering approaches in requirements management for software development in aviation industry. Trudy ISP RAN/Proc. ISP RAS, vol. 28, issue 2, 2016, pp.173-179. DOI: 10.15514/ISPRAS-2016-28(2)-11