RTCA DO 178 Software Issues in Airborne Systems and Equipment Certification

In recent years, the standards developed by RTCA have become a de facto approach in terms of proving airworthiness in military avionics systems around the world. One of the standards published by the Radio Technical Aviation Commission (RTCA) is the RTCA DO-178 standard. This standard is the primary standard approved by official organizations such as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which is affiliated with the US Department of Transportation, and the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), which is established within the framework of civil aviation security in the European Union, for civil software-based aviation systems.

The RTCA DO 178 standard was first published in the late 1970s and focused on documentation and testing to describe a set of prescriptive design assurance processes for software on the air. In the 1980s, updates containing different activity levels were made depending on the criticality of the software processes, but the process still remained prescriptive. In the 1992 update, the prescriptive process approach was abandoned and a set of activities and related objectives that a design assurance process should meet were defined. In short, this standard has been completely rewritten.

However, this time, in the face of technological developments in software engineering and advances in methodologies, the RTCA DO 178 standard has made it difficult to consistently implement its objectives. For this reason, the last update of the standard was published in 2012. In this update,

• Details in the standard have been clarified and inconsistencies have been eliminated, and
• Addendums are included that provide guidance for design assurance using certain technologies and support a more consistent approach to software compatibility.

The level of design assurance determined by this standard defines the amount of rigor that contributes to aircraft safety and must be applied by the design assurance process. The higher the design assurance level value, the more activities and objectives there are that need to be accomplished and fulfilled as part of the design assurance process. Because this has more serious consequences for the aircraft in case the software fails or malfunctions.

Among the numerous test, measurement, analysis and evaluation studies it provides for businesses in various sectors, our organization also provides testing services for airborne systems and equipment certification within the scope of RTCA DO 178 standard, with its trained and expert staff and advanced technological equipment.