About DO-178B certification

In DO-178B, “software” pertains to all drivers, Board Support Package (BSP), real-time operating system (RTOS), libraries, graphics, and application software.

Developing software for safety-critical certification applications involves considerably more documentation, up-front requirements-based design, requirements traceability, testing, and verification. Software testing means ensuring that the lowest level detailed requirements are accurately implemented, paths are covered according to their criticality level, and full traceability is provided.

Certification

For civil aerospace applications, certification is required for systems whose failure will put human life at risk.  The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the US and the Joint Aviation Authority (JAA) in Europe recognize DO-178B/ED-12B (Software Considerations in Airborne Systems and Equipment Certification) as an acceptable standard for the approval of software in airborne systems.  DO-178B/ED-12B are prepared and maintained by the RTCA and European Organization for Civil Aviation Electronics (EUROCAE), and these are the most stringent software certification standards in the world.

Evidence

DO-178B/ED-12B also concentrates on the evidence required to demonstrate compliance with the various criticality levels.  Producing this evidence, which includes test archives and traceability documentation, is very labor intensive and time consuming since every line of code that is produced under a DO-178B/ED-12B project must be traceable back to its original requirement.