Understand how DO-254 defines verification for avionics
The RTCA DO-254 (ED-80) design assurance standard for avionics describes specific processes for project verification and validation (V&V). A recently published technical paper describes these tasks and how they may differ from traditional ideas of verification.
The paper, from DO-254 specialist Patmos Engineering Services and Siemens Digital Industries Software, starts from the broad distinction of validation as the process where the correctness of what is defined within an avionics project is correct and verification as the process determining whether the definition has been met.
It then goes on to look at how this leads to a broader concept of verification and describes what is meant by some of the segments within the process (e.g., ‘requirements-based testing’, ‘elemental analysis’, etc). Some of these segments have generic names that may lead users to interpret them in different ways from how the standard expects them to be followed (e.g., ‘advanced verification’).
Alongside the definitions, the paper also reproduces a DO-254 verification example based on an actual avionics project, including a short description of the HDL simulation aspects.
Stages covered in the example include FPGA test bench and test cases; documentation; code coverage; physical test; and requirements tracing and coverage analysis.
