From Reviews to Analysis: Challenge and Opportunity Converge

The emergence of complex safety-critical systems such as integrated modular avionics challenges the limits of traditional process-based assurance methods based on what DO-178B calls “reviews.” The problem is that interaction between subsystems produces too many possible behaviors. Assurance for these cases needs support from what DO178B calls “analyses”; in particular, tool-supported calculation of (properties of) all possible system behaviors. These calculations can be performed by automated formal methods, but have been infeasible in the past due to inadequate tools and absence of suitable descriptions of the products. Recent advances have produced much more capable tools, and the emergence of “model based” approaches to system development has made suitable product descriptions