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Published: 13 October 2015 Publication History

Abstract

Formal methods tools have been shown to be effective at finding defects in and verifying the correctness of safety-critical systems such as avionics systems. The recent release of DO-178C and the accompanying Formal Methods Supplement DO-333 will make it easier for developers of software for commercial aircraft to obtain certification credit for the use of formal methods. However, most developers of avionics systems are unfamiliar with formal methods, and most developers of formal methods tools are unfamiliar with certification requirements and processes. This article provides a brief overview of the certification process for commercial aircraft, as well as some of the issues related to the use of formal methods tools in this context.

References

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Darren Cofer and Steven P. Miller. 2014. Formal Methods Case Studies for DO-333. Technical Report NASA/CR-2014-218244. NASA Contractor Report.
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Klaus Dräger, Andrey Kupriyanov, Bernd Finkbeiner, and Heike Wehrheim. 2010. SLAB: A Certifying Model Checker for Infinite-State Concurrent Systems. In Tools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems, 16th International Conference, TACAS 2010, Paphos, Cyprus, March 20-28, 2010. Proceedings. 271--274.
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IMDB. 1987. The Princess Bride. (1987). http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093779/
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Xavier Leroy. 2006. Formal Certification of a Compiler Back-end or: Programming a Compiler with a Proof Assistant. In Proceedings of the 33rd ACM SIGPLAN-SIGACT Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages, POPL 2006, Charleston SC, USA, January 11-13, 2006. 42--54.
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Steven P. Miller, Michael W. Whalen, and Darren D. Cofer. 2010. Software model checking takes off. Commun. ACM 53, 2 (2010), 58--64.
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RTCA. 2011a. DO-178C, Software Considerations in Airborne Systems and Equipment Certification. (2011).
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RTCA. 2011b. DO-330, Software Tool Qualification Considerations. (2011).
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RTCA. 2011c. DO-333, Formal Methods Supplement to DO-178C and DO-278A. (2011).
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SAE. 1996. ARP4761, Guidelines and Methods for Conducting the Safety Assessment Process on Civil Airborne Systems and Equipment. (1996).
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SAE. 2010. ARP4754A, Guidelines For Development Of Civil Aircraft and Systems on Civil Airborne Systems and Equipment. (2010).
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Cited By

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  • (2020)Hazard Analysis of Verification Supporting Arguments for Assured Autonomy2020 AIAA/IEEE 39th Digital Avionics Systems Conference (DASC)10.1109/DASC50938.2020.9256762(1-10)Online publication date: 11-Oct-2020

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Published In

cover image ACM SIGLOG News
ACM SIGLOG News  Volume 2, Issue 4
October 2015
22 pages
EISSN:2372-3491
DOI:10.1145/2835265
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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 13 October 2015
Published in SIGLOG Volume 2, Issue 4

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  • (2020)Hazard Analysis of Verification Supporting Arguments for Assured Autonomy2020 AIAA/IEEE 39th Digital Avionics Systems Conference (DASC)10.1109/DASC50938.2020.9256762(1-10)Online publication date: 11-Oct-2020

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