From the flight control unit to display and power systems, software can be found almost everywhere in military aircraft.
Failure of onboard mission and safety-critical software could have far-reaching repercussions. To ensure the safety of pilots, passengers, and aircraft, software applications for military aviation must be tested to ensure that they operate correctly. This testing is often done to standards like MIL-HDBK-516C, AMACC, EMACC, ADSM, FACE, Def Stan 00-55 and Def Stan 00-56. Some defense applications use the FAA’s DO-178C guidance, or parts of it, to demonstrate airworthiness.
Verification requirements for flight software
Software verification is crucial to demonstrate that safety-critical and mission-critical flight software meets its functional and nonfunctional requirements. A range of activities support meeting verification requirements for flight software, including the following.
Military & Defense software needs to be tested to verify that it functions correctly. To meet airworthiness requirements such as AMACC and MIL-HDBK-516C, tests should be based on high and low-level software requirements.
Structural coverage analysis (code coverage analysis) for military & defense software ensures that requirements-based testing has sufficiently tested the code structure. Structural coverage analysis is required to meet airworthiness requirements such as AMACC and MIL-HDBK-516C, and the required level of coverage often depends on the criticality of the software being verified.
Data Coupling and Control Coupling coverage analysis for military & defense software demonstrates that software data flows and control flows have been exercised during requirements-based testing. This analysis is required for some military & defense airworthiness standards such as AMACC.
Safety-critical military & defense software must operate within timing deadlines. Timing analysis, including worst-case execution time analysis, is required to meet verification objectives in standards such as AMACC and MIL-HDBK-516C.
Multicore processing for real time software makes systems less deterministic, as program behavior can be influenced by interference from software running on different processors. The use of multicore processing for military & defense software applications adds additional airworthiness requirements, such as the AA-22-01 amendment to MIL-HDBK-516C.
“RapiCover’s low overheads and advanced features enabled our team to significantly reduce the time and effort required for our structural coverage analysis. Rapita’s support team also demonstrated a genuine determination to support us when required, and we are delighted with our overall experience with Rapita as a verification partner.”
Steve Baker
Director
MBE Systems
Benefits of working with Rapita
Efficient testing & verification
Meeting project budgets is a top priority, which is why we focus heavily on making software testing and verification efficient.
We provide training and consultancy on making your testing and verification process more efficient, and our software includes key effort-saving features such as merging of results from different test runs and migration of coverage justifications.
On-target expertise
At Rapita, we know that on-target testing is the gold standard, and our verification solutions are designed with this in mind.
With flexible integration strategies, RVS can integrate with almost any embedded target or simulator, regardless of available memory, bandwidth, or code size, and has been used for on-target verification of LEON and ARM processors.
RVS’s instrumentation is the lowest on the market, meaning fewer test runs are needed to collect results to verify your system.
Verification, your way
Every project and organization is different, and an efficient verification approach must align with your processes and development environment.
RVS integrates into your existing development environment, including build system, requirements management and application life cycle management tooling.
One-stop solution
Using too many independent pieces of software slows projects down and causes a management headache.
Rapita and RVS provide solutions for all of the key verification activities you’ll need to perform that require dynamic analysis, meaning you can simplify both your verification strategy and your procurement.
A trusted partner
When you work with us, we do our best to support your needs, every time.
We regularly develop custom tools and solutions to meet specific verification needs.
Support is a cornerstone of our business, and our support team regularly exceeds our high service objectives. Check out some of our support testimonials to see we aren’t exaggerating.