Experience of using LDRA Tool Suite during “Element” JSC products certification

Abstract

The introductory part of the article provides brief information about the main direction of the JSC Element activity: development and production of electronic control systems for aircraft engines. To ensure the safety of the hardware and software of such systems, their development must be carried out in strict compliance with the DO-178C/ED-12C and DO-254. The development must be traceable, verified, high-quality, and properly documented. The volume of work and documents for product certification is so large that traditional paper technologies do not guarantee a proper result. Therefore, special software tools are used to automate some processes. This article considers tools that automate the requirements tracking, verification, and testing processes. The following section provides an overview of software lifecycle management tools for embedded systems. The limiting factors are support for the selected programming system considering the type of target microcontroller, availability of requirements management tools, coverage and code quality analysis, tracing, and various types of testing (module, integration, etc.). The review includes the most significant tools (V/sure Requirements, Enterprise Architect, DOORS, VectorCAST, Polarion, and others) that support DO-178C certification. These tools have different price categories, feature sets, integration capabilities with other systems, development difficulty, and specific after-sales service. Element JSC chose is LDRA Tool Suite – a flexible platform for creating safe, secure, and mission-critical software in an accelerated, cost-effective, and requirements-driven process. The following sections describe the main functions and composition of LDRA Tool Suite applications. The main principles and features of using the tool are given. The disadvantages of the tool include the lack of the ability to track specific changes in the structure of requirements or other project artifacts and the high complexity of development. The authors share their experience in developing with LDRA Tool Suite, noting that the costs do not end with the purchase of a license and that staff training investments are required.