Guidance documentation for development and testing of Safety Critical Aircraft Software. It covers the planning process, development process and integration process of software in aircraft systems, this is a similar framework as the ARP4754A but more specified towards software development.

• Objectives for software life cycle processes.
• Descriptions of activities and design considerations for achieving those objectives
• Descriptions of the evidence that indicate that the objectives have been satisfied.

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DO-254 – DESIGN ASSURANCE GUIDANCE
FOR AIRBORNE ELECTRONIC HARDWARE

Introduction

• Outlines a structured approach for reducing errors introduced to ensure design assurance
  • All of those planned and systematic actions used to substantiate, at an adequate level of confidence, that design errors have been identified and corrected such that the hardware satisfies the application certification basis.
• Formed by a group of industry experts under the RTCA [Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics]
• ED-80 is the European equivalent

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Introduction

Back in the day, aircraft were simple. Instruments were mechanical and not interconnect, many were not required to fly but merely “indicated” to the pilot. Modern avionics employs many complex and interconnected systems, many of which are responsible for high level (aircraft level) function and play a huge role in modern aircraft safety. As instrumentation became more complex, they ran out of space in the cockpit, therefore units became multi-functional or “glass cockpits” were utilised to ensure that the right information is available to the pilot at the right time.

As these systems became more complex and more responsible for aircraft function and safety; the architectures and risks associated with these systems became more complex, novel and diverse. Due to the nature of aviation, in-depth failure mode analysis is required for each component/system in order to identify a wide variety of potential failures using existing knowledge. From this, the risks are assessed for their severity, likelihood and detectability and prioritised from there.

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