DO-178 continues to adapt to emerging digital technologies

In the past, companies specializing in both military and commercial aviation were given several years to run their products through the litany of tests and certifications required to then reach the market. Today, however, the cycle time to market is much faster and companies now face the added pressure of losing their competitive edge and spending excessive funds to certify their products.

These complications are paired with what officials say is increased scrutiny by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), following recent incidents with commercial aircraft. An industrywide push for increasingly complex hardware is also making software reuse a priority to ensure both affordability and a more efficient safety-certification procedure.

Trends in avionics safety certification all come down to industry innovation. As new and groundbreaking technologies emerge, standards must adapt to ensure that modernization efforts are maintained and supported, all while keeping certification documents timely and relevant. With the advent of artificial intelligence (AI), cyberwarfare, and unmanned technologies, manufacturers are pointing to a shift in avionics safety certification in hopes of finding the balance between rigor and flexibility.

Overcoming challenges with DO-178 certification

Software is still a relatively new aspect of the use of digital technology as a concept in aviation. Moreover, software evolves at what can seem like lightning speeds. As soon as the FAA, EASA, and other regulatory bodies implemented the processes and standards to certify software safety, it seemed as though even more advanced and state-of-the-art programs were released immediately after. But the aviation industry, both commercial and defense, embraces innovation in an effort to remain current with updating safety-certification documents to keep pace with new technologies. One example is the addition of an extension to the DO-178 certification.

“The DO-178C is a newer evolution to the DO-178B standard for certifying ­avionics software,” says Arun Subbarao, vice president of engineering at Lynx Software Technologies (San Jose, California). “The main intent was to remove some of the ambiguity that was present in the older standard, as well as to allow some newer techniques such as formal methods, object-oriented code, or model-based development into the process. It also provides allowances for new topics such as the Parameter Data Item (PDI) and extraneous code.”

Source: DO-178 continues to adapt to emerging digital technologies – Military Embedded Systems