Abstract
Gérard Ladier, Head of Methods and Software Quality at Airbus Industries, presented the methods used to certify critical avionics software. The imposed standard is DO-178B, which defines the verification processes to be applied to such software. This standard clearly recognizes the specificity of software compared to other aircraft components, and therefore the need for specific treatment. Verification involves a combination of activities relating to the development process:
- code and documentation reviews ;
- intensive testing, either stand-alone or on the aircraft simulator;
- characterization of the coverage of functional requirements (high level) and code (low level) provided by the tests;
- full traceability between all stages, from functional requirements to code and tests.
It involves external authorities, who verify the validity and completeness of the manufacturer's verifications.
G. Ladier showed how the software certification process is implemented at Airbus, and how it has led to exceptional results: zero in-flight bugs detected on the A320 in over 50 million flight hours. A new DO-178C standard is defined by a 120-strong international working group operating on the principle of total consensus. It will place greater emphasis on a product-oriented approach, with the qualification of high-level tools, abstract model-based design, object-oriented methods, automatic code generation and formal verification.
