Advanced Integrity and Safety Assurance for Software

Airworthiness assessments of software-intensive based systems in aviation cannot be limited to verification and testing of the end product, i.e. computer code, since other factors can have an important effect on safety and integrity.Current methods and tools have limitations that do not adequately address the issues affecting the growth in complexity and cost of system certification.This project will develop Model Based System Engineering (MBSE) methods and tools that enable virtual integration and verification in a system architecture context for software-intensive aviation platforms.The WW Technology Group (WWTG) approach integrates software code artifacts with architecture modeling and analysis to assess and verify system safety properties.The generated results can be organized into V&V arguments, and evidence chains. Establishing traceability of these artifacts provides values throughout the life cycle.Defects can be removed during the design stage, legacy components can be characterized and tightly integrated into architecture models, and continuous system verification can be performed by checking the correctness and integrity of the evidence chain, from system design to code artifacts. Modular safety assurance cases can be constructed to capture the evidence chain for use in certification of systems.