Development organizations that create safety-critical airborne software systems must have the systems approved for use by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The FAA recognizes DO-178B as an acceptable means of compliance for securing the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) approval of software in airborne systems and equipment. Created by RTCA, Inc., this standard provides guidelines for determining that the software aspects of airborne systems and equipment comply with airworthiness requirements. Many of the guidelines in the Software Verification and Software Lifecycle Data section of this standard can be supported with the use of the Coverity Integrity Center, a software analysis solution used to find critical defects throughout the software development life cycle. Coverity’s software analysis works in conjunction with other testing methods (dynamic testing, requirements tracing, etc.) to enhance the software verification process by automating code review, significantly lowering cost of compliance. Additionally, by using automated software analysis as outlined below, development organizations can improve software integrity by eliminating defects early in the development lifecycle and improve productivity by shortening defect remediation and testing cycles.

This document will discuss how the Coverity Integrity Center can help with specific software verification guidelines as outlined in DO-178B.