A Software Verification Approach That Complies with DO-178B Certification Rules on UAV’s Flight Control Computer

Abstract

In this paper, the verification approach developed in accordance with the DO-178B certification requirements of the software of the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle’s (UAV) Flight Control Computer (FCC) and the lessons learned from this approach are presented. The software verification process is a process that is used to verify how the aircraft's flight control computer behaves according to specified requirements and is used to verify that it does not produce unexpected results. The paper will first describe the software architecture, and then the types of tests developed in accordance with the software architecture. Then, test levels will be compared according to different testing parameters. Afterwards, the information regarding the management of test cases will be reviewed in detail with their different scenarios. The traceability controls and the importance of using traceability while writing the test cases and how to blend a traceability inside a test case will be explained. The studies on structural coverage analysis will be covered in a different section. This whole process can be made automated. To help automate the process, various tools are used. These tools also need to be tested, meaning they need to be qualified. Section 8 talks about this. Finally, lessons learned from the DO-178B certification process will be presented at the end of the paper.