Advancing Avionics Verification and Validation

Reducing delays in avionics software engineering projects is extremely difficult due to the risk of failure in the software – where an error could result in fatal loss. In fact, more than 90% of their software verification and validation projects are delivered late.

Avionics validation and verification requires significant engineering effort to comply with regulatory requirements DO-178B or DO-178C software standards, and teams are always looking for ways to reduce this effort through automation to achieve time- to-market goals.

HCL Engineering and R&D Services (ERS) is one of the world’s largest third-party service providers in aeronautics, working with more than 15 avionics customers worldwide on avionics and electro-mechanical systems for Boeing, Airbus, Bombardier, Embraer, Gulfstream, COMAC and other major programs.

The HCL ERS avionics team had been using IBM Rational Test RealTime for 10 – 15 years and had deep expertise in that product, but Test RealTime lacked some features that would make their verification process more efficient and effective.

As a result, they partnered with the HCL OneTest Embedded engineering team to implement new capabilities that would allow them to use HCL OneTest Embedded across all their testing phases.

The solution (called eDAT) put in place by HCL ERS relies on a workbench that interfaces the system under test with a machine dedicated to the test through a C/ C++ library (supporting discrete I/O, ARINC bus…), and targets the top five categories in avionics software testing / verification and validation (code review, low level testing, software-software integration testing, hardware-software integration testing, and analysis) based on the use of OneTest Embedded.

Download the case study that shows how the team used OneTest Embedded to ensure software code accuracy and consistency, while reducing its test case generation effort by 20 – 25%. The team also reduced its code coupling analysis effort by one-third – saving more than 700 hours of effort. In addition, it achieved more than 14% savings with assisted test creation from call graphs and the scriptless visual test editor.