Articles 1 - 12
Avionics
GUEST BLOG: The convergence of safety and security -- Five steps to building modern avionics software - Blog
April 28, 2026In the early days of avionics, software operated in silos, or isolated computing environments with little to no outside connectivity. Today, modern airborne systems are increasingly linked to maintenance systems, passenger networks, and cloud-based analytics.
Avionics
Meeting the challenge of airworthiness certification through continuous verification - Story
September 04, 2025Recent trends in embedded system development have made designing – and delivering – advanced air-mobility systems more challenging than ever before. Game-changing and innovative technology advances are being realized in software, resulting in large code bases that are more complex. Software teams are growing in size as well, but often not in line with the growth in software content and complexity. In addition, teams must comply with rapidly changing industry standards without missing launch dates or exceeding budget constraints. Changes in embedded development affect the design life cycle – from concept to achieving airworthiness certification. Design teams can take certain steps to address these changes while maintaining functional safety, supply-chain security, reliability, and time-to-market demands.
Cyber
Coding standards, are they necessary? - Blog
July 27, 2017
CODE QUALITY BLOG: As cyberwarfare becomes increasingly part of the norm, many, if not most, military embedded systems are safety- and/or security-critical in nature. To combat this increasing risk, it only makes sense that military systems should be constructed following some of the industry?s most rigorous software development standards to ensure their safe, secure, and functionally accurate operation. Following these standards offers a double benefit. Not only does it reduce safety and security risk, but it also reduces cost. Software development standards improve maintainability, upgradability, reusability, and testability, delivering long-term benefits especially given the typical life span of these systems.
Cyber
How much and what kind of coverage analysis is enough? - Blog
November 21, 2016
CODE QUALITY BLOG: The discussion of coverage analysis can bring up a number of different assumptions that do not always agree. Does it mean checking that all the code has been executed? Does it mean that all requirements have been exercised and tested? Does it bring up some number other than 100 percent that can be relied upon for functioning code? What we want to do is to assure ourselves that a program has been thoroughly tested to the point it can be relied upon, even in life-threatening situations. How do we achieve this and what aspect of ?coverage? will allow us to rest easy?
Cyber
Nail down software security with dynamic analysis - Blog
October 30, 2016
CODE QUALITY BLOG: You?ve secured your Internet of Things (IoT)-connected system with components for authentication such as password, retina scan, physical key, plus encryption/decryption and more. But building these things in is not enough. You?ve got to be certain that they all work together properly and that the code doesn?t contain any flaws that could grant access to hackers. Security needs to be built in at the very start of the project by using secure protocols and continuing on up to functional elements in the application. One powerful tool for gaining this assurance is dynamic analysis.
Cyber
Test and analysis tools help verify and enforce security in military systems - Story
September 15, 2016
Secure coding practices, properly tested and verified, can help assure the reliable and safe operations of military systems. Organizations should start from the ground up, using a combination of static and dynamic analysis, unit and integration testing, and requirements traceability.
Avionics
New technology helps multicore meet safety-critical standards - Blog
May 31, 2016
CODE QUALITY Blog: With industry's drive to reduce the size, weight, and power (SWaP) of embedded systems, multicore systems are becoming the go-to for military and aerospace fields.
Avionics
Solving the safety certification challenge for multicore? - Blog
March 09, 2016
CODE QUALITY Blog: It?s no secret that multicore systems have continued to be an attractive option for the military and aerospace fields. With the drive toward reducing the size, weight, and power (SWaP) of embedded systems, the push to rely on multicore systems continues.
Avionics
Going modular? Meet data and control coupling - Blog
June 10, 2015
CODE QUALITY BLOG: Since the dawn of the discipline of software engineering, one of the persistent mantras has been modularization. This structured design and functional decomposition approach breaks software down into clearly defined functional units, or modules, with unambiguous interfaces. The proven value of this approach is high quality software. When you go modular, however, software testing must examine the way that the modules come together and interact. This kind of testing is dubbed “data and control coupling.”
Avionics
Can Agile environments accelerate embedded software verification and certification? - Blog
January 27, 2015
CODE QUALITY BLOG: Although Agile development is being adopted by most software development organizations, most embedded developers, especially those seeking certification, continue to resist using Agile methodologies. Developers perceive more risks with an iterative Agile approach versus the traditionally regimented methodologies and artifacts required to achieve certification. Specific concerns stem from how requirements are captured in an Agile process, and how the test early-and-often principles of Agile development can be fulfilled prior to the embedded systems hardware being available.
Avionics
CODE QUALITY BLOG: Is 100 percent code coverage analysis essential? - Blog
November 19, 2014
CODE QUALITY BLOG: Safety-critical software standards focus very highly on how to test software effectively. They state that effective software testing requires a disciplined approach in which code coverage is used to provide feedback on the effectiveness of the testing to date. The level of testing rigor applied to a system must be driven by the impact of a system failure. The more significant the consequences, the more rigorous the testing has to be.
Avionics
CODE QUALITY BLOG: Is code coverage analysis necessary? - Blog
October 20, 2014
CODE QUALITY BLOG: When programmers discuss testing, a question that often comes up is how much is enough? Do I need to get 100 percent coverage? Let’s first address the elephant in the room: it’s impossible to fully test a piece of software. Don’t believe me? A 100-line program described by Glennford Myers in the 1976 book "Software Reliability: Principles and Practices" had as many as 1018 unique paths. In reality when you realize that contemporary software often exceeds hundreds of thousands, if not millions of lines of code and you quickly realize how impractical it is to completely test a piece of software.
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