Applying Model-Based Techniques for Aerospace Projects in Accordance with DO-178C, DO-331, and DO-333

International audienceThe new standard for software development in civil aviation, DO-178C, mainly differs from its predecessor DO-178B, in that it has standard supplements to provide greater scope for using new software development methods. The most important standard supplements are DO-331 on the methods of model-based development and model-based verification and DO-333 on the use of formal methods such as model checking and abstract interpretation. These key software design techniques offer enormous potential for achieving highly efficient software development in the aerospace sector while not only maintaining the high quality and safety requirements for software but actually improving them. This article presents a model-based tool chain for DO-178C/DO-331-compliant projects making use of several innovative techniques like mechanisms for converting textual requirements to formalized requirements, the representation of requirements as specification or design models, the use of automatic production code generation to develop source code and various verification techniques. The latter involve the use of simulation, automatic test case generation and model checking to verify models as well as highly integrated execution environments to verify the executable object code. In summary, the techniques presented provide powerful mechanisms not only for requirements definition and design, but especially for the various verification steps to meet the objectives of DO-178C