Software Safety, Certification and DO-178B

Instructor(s)

Description

Provides the fundamentals of developing and assessing software to the standard RTCA/DO-178B Software Considerations in Airborne Systems and Equipment Certification. Also provides insight into the FAA’s software review process, the FAA’s software policy, practical keys for successful software development and certification, common pitfalls of software development, and software challenges facing the aviation community. Practical exercises and in-class activities will be used to enhance the learning process.

Target Audience

Designed for software developers, avionics engineers, systems integrators, aircraft designers and others involved in development or implementation of safety-critical software. The focus is on civil aviation, certification, and use of RTCA/DO-178B; however, the concepts may be applicable for other safety domains, such as military, medical, nuclear and automotive.

Fee Includes

Includes instruction, a course notebook, the RTCA/DO-178B Software Considerations in Airborne Systems and Equipment Certification handbook, refreshments and four lunches. The course notes are for participants only and are not for sale.

Fees: See fee information for individual classes in the registration column on the right side of this page.

Class Time

Class time: 28 hours • 2.8 CEUs

Course Outline

Day One

Introductions and background; overview of existing standards related to software safety; tie between the system, safety, and software processes; history, purpose, framework and layout of DO-178B; reading the DO-178B Annex A Tables; DO-178B planning process; DO-178B development and integration/test processes—development objectives, high-level requirements, traceability, design (low-level requirements and architecture), code/integration, integration/test objectives, normal and robustness testing

Day Two

DO-178B verification processes—overview of verification, verification of requirements, design, code and testing; DO-178B configuration management, quality assurance, and certification liaison processes—configuration management objectives and terminology, control categories, quality assurance (QA) objectives, DO-178B QA philosophy, SQA approaches, certification liaison objectives, DO-178B life cycle data; special topics related to DO-178B—partitioning and protection, structural coverage, dead and deactivated code, service history, Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) software

Day Three

FAA software-related policy and guidance—software review process, user-modifiable and field-loadable software, change impact analysis, tool qualification, previously developed software, software reuse, integrated modular avionics, databases (DO-200A), complex hardware (DO-254)

Day Four

Assessing compliance to DO-178B—the Software Job-Aid; common pitfalls in applying DO-178B; software challenges facing the aviation industry: object-oriented technology, off-shore development, model-based development, increased use of verification and development tools, use of real-time operating systems and other commercially available components, software reuse; summary

How You May Benefit

Gain valuable insight into the software development and certification processes
Obtain practical keys for developing and assessing software to meet the civil aviation standard: RTCA/DO-178B
Understand the importance of software assurance and its tie to the system safety assessment and the system development processes
Learn the common pitfalls in applying DO-178B and obtaining certification and ideas for how to proactively address those issues
Understand the FAA’s software-related policy and guidance
Learn about the software challenges facing the aviation industry

Dates and Locations

For Course Information

Contact Kim Hunsinger
at 785-864-4758
or use the button below:

On-Site Course Information

Find out how courses
can be tailored to
your company’s needs.
Contact Soma Chakrabarti
at 785-864-7855
or use the button below:

Registration Information

Mail
Aerospace Short Courses
The University of Kansas
Continuing Education
Registrations
1515 St. Andrews Drive
Lawrence, KS 66047-1625

Phone
Toll-free 877-404-5823
or 785-864-5823
Fax
785-864-4871
TDD
800-766-3777
E-mail
kuce@ku.edu