A Model-Based Agile Process for DO-178C Certification

Increasing complexity has driven aerospace companies to consider the use of Agile processes for development of safety-critical systems. For other domains, Agile processes have been shown to improve cost, schedule, and quality metrics. Airworthiness certification under the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) guidelines imposes unique challenges that require adaptation of Agile processes. The FAA’s mission is maintaining safety within the National Air Space, and the certification process that the FAA has adopted is a process-oriented standard RTCA DO-178C. Here we present a Model-Based Agile Process (MBA process) that will allow companies to benefit from some of the efficiencies inherent in Agile methods while maintaining compliance with airworthiness certification requirements. Model-based requirements capture using the Unified Modeling Language (UML) facilitates iterative and incremental capture, refinement, and verification of requirements using executable requirements models, maintaining the Agility of the requirements elicitation process.