Aviation Certification of Avionics Software: Minimizing Costs, Time, and Risks

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Avionics are undergoing transformation, with new technologies, opportunities, and markets coming into play. These changes result in new functionalities, mostly implemented through embedded software. Looking ahead, the focus must be on safety, security, and aircraft certification.

Traditionally, decisions about tools for software development and verification were made by individual development and assurance teams. However, given today's complex regulatory environment and short time-to-market windows, decisions are increasingly being made at the enterprise level. Initiatives aimed at reducing the cost, time, and risks of certification have therefore become essential activities for executives.

Consider new aspects and technologies

In the aviation sector, there are new technologies and aspects that shape decisions in software development and verification. These include:

• Growing control of autonomous systems
• With the market introduction of autonomous aircraft, companies using proven software development and testing processes will be better positioned to address potential certification obstacles and maintain their early-mover advantage.
• Significant increase in small aircraft such as eVTOLs and drones.
• Pioneers will rely on a flexible, scalable design concept that helps them adapt to changing requirements while leveraging proven commercial design practices to meet these demands with less risk and cost.
• Impacts of sustainability and zero emissions on design
• As regulations and technologies evolve to reduce aircraft emissions and drive electrification, existing standards and automated development and verification tools can provide a solid foundation to help mitigate the risks associated with complex new technologies.
• New attack vectors due to increased connectivity.
• While an earlier shift ensures that both flight safety and security aspects are taken into account during the design phase, connectivity demands the ability to quickly address vulnerabilities that only surface in the field. Automated verification tools, combined with requirement traceability tools, can isolate changes and perform automatic regression testing on the affected functionality.

Overcoming certification challenges

The verification of software can require as much time, effort, and resources as all planning and development processes combined. Testing and verification, therefore, become costly activities. Additionally, verification is becoming increasingly challenging due to the ever-growing complexity and scope of compliance requirements. It is no longer an option to address these challenges and complexities without integrated, automated tools. To reduce the time required for development and certification, various teams must be given the opportunity to work collaboratively and in parallel while utilizing an integrated development and verification toolchain.

The entire software development lifecycle should be covered by a holistic approach to ensure effective communication and knowledge transfer across all phases. Transitioning to an integrated suite of automated software development and verification tools can have a significant impact. This is especially true for decentralized and geographically dispersed teams that need to consolidate information throughout the development and testing processes. Manual workflows or isolated tools would hinder efficiency and allow errors and vulnerabilities to creep in.

Lower costs through integrated tools

In contrast to spreadsheets and standalone document management systems, integrated tools provide comprehensive transparency and impact analysis across projects and teams. This enables faster and better decision-making. An ideal selection of verification tools offers a wide range of capabilities, such as requirements traceability, impact analysis, test management, compliance with coding standards, code quality inspection, code coverage analysis, data and control flow analysis, unit, integration, and system testing, as well as the automatic generation of certification evidence.

Such tools are suitable for any software development lifecycle models. Moreover, verification tools are an essential component of the Continuous Integration (CI) workflow. Teams can therefore work with the same tools throughout the entire development process, enabling the development, verification, and deployment of software to proceed quickly and iteratively. Using the CI concept, developers can perform static analyses and unit tests as part of their front-end verification to ensure that the code provides the intended functionality before it is merged with other codebases.

Shifting earlier minimizes security vulnerabilities

The topic of cybersecurity has always been a moving target in the field of avionics systems, with serious implications for functional safety, making it a significant source of business risks and uncertainties. The recommended strategy here is to integrate the security aspect directly into the design to minimize vulnerabilities during development. Subsequent testing of the completed software helps demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach before the product is deployed. Once deployed, a strategy becomes essential to quickly and securely address newly emerging vulnerabilities.

To address this challenge, many teams rely on an integrated DevSecOps approach to reduce costs and improve efficiency. Traditionally, security teams would only receive the completed software for review; however, this earlier integration allows software development and security teams to work efficiently and cost-effectively in parallel. Flexible and customizable software tools can easily adapt to the specific risk level and required stringency of risk mitigation, while requirement traceability tools enable rapid responses to vulnerabilities—even in systems that have not been modified for years.

Develop aircraft software efficiently

Problems should be resolved and fundamental changes implemented as early as possible, rather than waiting for the launch of the next critical product. Equipped with a comprehensive package of verification tools, teams are well-supported with documentation and shared knowledge throughout the entire product development lifecycle. These new branches of avionics demand complex development and regular collaboration. By using integrated tools, teams are enabled to efficiently develop, verify, and certify new aircraft software. (se)