Avionics software safety apples to embedded software that is used in the aviation industry, where there is high need of accuracy and safety.
Avionics software and conventional embedded software differ in the development process. Avionics software safety development is required by law and is optimized for safety whereas other software may not be too much dependent in law.
An assessment of avionics software is not only crucial to the specific software, but also for the system and aircraft.
Modern critical avionics software safety requires rigorous security engineering that interleaves with the established safety practices in place. New cybersecurity standards are requiring security design from the very beginning of product lifecycle.
To address these requirements, there are advantages to modern software development practices found in Agile, continuous integration and deployment and DevSecOps practices.
Despite many airframe projects being constrained at the high level to a “V model” or waterfall approach, hybrid methods mixing V model and continuous process together are a good alternative.
Focusing on the “shift left” of security and safety verification and assessment reduces the effects of “big bang” integration that plagues the V model approach. Just as it is impossible to build-in safety into software, the same holds true for security.
Experts in this area agree that security must be part of the avionics software safety product concept and built-in.
Want to learn more? Tonex offers Avionics Software Safety Certification, a 3-day bootcamp focusing on Software Considerations in Airborne Systems and Equipment Certification. This course presents considerations and methods of developing and analyzing avionics software and highlights managing a software safety program.
This course is designed for system engineers, system safety engineers and software engineers , analysts, developers, programmers, modelers, quality, reliability, safety employees with little or no avionics software experience. The course is also useful for those who have experience with avionics software but have never had any formal training on the standard.
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