LDRA's Tool Qualification Support Pack

DO-178B/C “Software Considerations in Airborne Systems and Equipment Certification”, is the prevailing standard for critical software development in the avionics industry worldwide. As one of the most stringent software development standards, it is also becoming (partially) adopted within sectors such as automotive, medical, defence or transportation where life-critical systems are manufactured.

As an important complement to LDRA tool suite, LDRA offers a Tool Qualification Support Pack (TQSP). Qualification of a verification (test) tool is needed when the test processes are eliminated, reduced or automated by the use of a software tool without its output being verified as specified in [DO178B/C]. The use of software tools to automate activities of the software lifecycle processes can help satisfy system safety objectives insofar as they can enforce conformance with software development standards and use automatic checking.

The objective of the tool qualification process is to ensure that the tool provides confidence at least equivalent to that of the processes eliminated, reduced or automated. If partitioning of tool functions can be demonstrated, only those functions that are used and whose outputs are not verified need to be qualified. As required in DO-178B for qualified verification tools, LDRA products are tools that cannot introduce errors in the embedded code, but are in charge of detecting them. For that purpose, the LDRA tool suite satisfy qualification requirements that are mandatory for verification tools [DO178B-§12.2.2]

The tool qualification pack includes:

• Identified Tool Operational Requirements
• Tool Specifications
• Tool Qualification Procedures and Test Strategies
• A Validation Test Suite

Customer Testimony:

On February 16th, 2006 Sino Swearingen received a Type Certificate from the FAA for their SJ30-2 aircraft. This aircraft uses Honeywell avionics. Honeywell chose the LDRA tool suite to assist in performing verification activates on the Honeywell autopilot. The autopilot has DO-178B Level A software. This level of software required Honeywell to use the LDRA tool suite in a manner to show that the MC/DC coverage objectives were satisfied. Honeywell was successful in qualifying the LDRA tool suite during the course of the program and using it to achieve the necessary objectives. To see more visit: http://www.sj30jet.com.

Obtaining Further Information

For further information on DO-178B Certification complete the LDRA reply form or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .