A comparison of standards for software engineering based on DO-178B for certification of avionics systems

Certification of avionics software is an increasingly important subject, since more and more avionics systems in future aircraft will be software equipped. The DO-17813 standard provides guidelines for software certification. Re-use of software is emerging, partly enabled by the integrated modular avionics concept, and imposed by a reduction of life-cycle costs. Re-use, however, requires re-certification or certification of software that was not developed according to DO-17813.

The DO-178B standard is specially developed to provide a certification basis for avionics software, without going into details of the software development process. Other standards focus on software engineering aspects. We have used the DO-178B standard as a common basis for comparison with DOD-STD2167A (military), ESA PSS-05-0 (space), and IEC65A(Secretariat)122 (industry). Comparison topics include:

• • life cycles;

• • prescribed documentation;

• • configuration management;

• • verification and validation;

• • quality assurance.

All standards prescribe the software development process, emphasizing specific aspects in a certain area of interest. The results of our investigation will assist in understanding the rationale behind several standards, and can be used for:

• • certification according to DO-17813 of software that was developed using another standard;

• • certification of software using DO-17813, in concert with another standard.