Assurance Benefits of ISO 26262 compliant Microcontrollers for safety-critical Avionics

The usage of complex Microcontroller Units (MCUs) in avionic systems constitutes a challenge in assuring their safety. They are not developed according to the development requirements accepted by the aerospace industry. These Commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware components usually target other domains like the telecommunication branch. In the last years MCUs developed in compliance to the ISO 26262 have been released on the market for safety-related automotive applications. The avionic assurance process could profit from these safety MCUs. In this paper we present evaluation results based on the current assurance practice that demonstrates expected assurance activities benefit from ISO 26262 compliant MCUs.Comment: Submitted to SafeComp 2018: http://www.es.mdh.se/safecomp2018

Application of flight systems methodologies to the validation of knowledge-based systems

Flight and mission-critical systems are verified, qualified for flight, and validated using well-known and well-established techniques. These techniques define the validation methodology used for such systems. In order to verify, qualify, and validate knowledge-based systems (KBS's), the methodology used for conventional systems must be addressed, and the applicability and limitations of that methodology to KBS's must be identified. The author presents an outline of how this approach to the validation of KBS's is being developed and used at the Dryden Flight Research Facility of the NASA Ames Research Center

The Dag-Brucken ASRS Case Study

In 1996 an agreement was made between a well-known beverage manufacturer, Super-Cola Taiwan, (SCT) and a small Australian electrical engineering company, Dag-Brücken ASRS Pty Ltd, (DB), to provide an automated storage and retrieval system (ASRS) facility as part of SCT’s production facilities in Asia. Recognising the potential of their innovative and technically advanced design, DB was awarded a State Premiers Export Award and was a finalist in that year’s National Export Awards. The case tracks the development and subsequent implementation of the SCT ASRS project, setting out to highlight how the lack of appropriate IT development processes contributed to the ultimate failure of the project and the subsequent winding up of DB only one year after being honoured with these prestigious awards. The case provides compelling evidence of the types of project management incompetency that, from the literature, appears to contribute to the high failure rate in IT projects. For confidentiality reasons, the names of the principal parties are changed, but the case covers actual events documented by one of the project team members as part of his postgraduate studies, providing an example of the special mode of evidence collection that Yin (1994) calls ‘participant-observation’

An open source collaboration infrastructure for Calibre

The study of Free and Open Source (Libre) software and the benefits provided by its processes and products to collaborative software development has been somewhat ad hoc. Each project wishing to use tools and techniques drawn from Libre software conducts its own research, thus duplicating effort, consequently there is a lack of established community practice on which new projects can draw. Long-standing intuitive theories of Libre development lack empirical validation. The long-term goal is to provide a resource to guide the evolution of Libre-software projects, from inception to maturity. The CALIBRE project is a co-ordination action aiming to address these issues through its research, its wider educational goals, and with an open invitation to the community to contribute. To succeed, the CALIBRE project needs an effective technological infrastructure which must support internal and external collaboration, communication and contribution to the project. The requirements of CALIBRE are similar to those of a Libre software project; this suggests that adopting a SourceForge-style environment which will be incrementally enhanced with further specialised tools as the requirements become better understood will be a sensible strategy

An Exploration into Technological Capabilities among early stage Indian product based Telecom start-ups

New technology based start-ups play a very important role in developing the economy of a country. In India, telecom sector has seen unprecedented growth over the last decade and this has led to emergence of several telecom related start-ups. However, product based B2B start-ups are rare and existing ones have to undergo several challenges in commercializing. Surprisingly not much research work has been undertaken in identifying capabilities among early stage start-ups although the early phase represents a very crucial phase for product based firms and has been known to determine the success or failure for start-ups. Present study explores the technological capabilities that enable commercialization among such early stage start-ups by adopting a multiple case (four independent cases) based inductive methodology with Indian telecom start-ups as the context. We have identified architectural design, algorithmic implementation and product adaptation as components of technological capability of such start-ups. We further drill in to each of the sub-components of the technological capabilities to unearth their antecedents and peculiarities in telecom product company context. As a result we also present a classification scheme for studying the product architecture in the telecom context. We analyze and point out differences in technological capability among telecom start-ups vis-�-vis established firms in the sector .

Safety-Critical Systems and Agile Development: A Mapping Study

In the last decades, agile methods had a huge impact on how software is developed. In many cases, this has led to significant benefits, such as quality and speed of software deliveries to customers. However, safety-critical systems have widely been dismissed from benefiting from agile methods. Products that include safety critical aspects are therefore faced with a situation in which the development of safety-critical parts can significantly limit the potential speed-up through agile methods, for the full product, but also in the non-safety critical parts. For such products, the ability to develop safety-critical software in an agile way will generate a competitive advantage. In order to enable future research in this important area, we present in this paper a mapping of the current state of practice based on {a mixed method approach}. Starting from a workshop with experts from six large Swedish product development companies we develop a lens for our analysis. We then present a systematic mapping study on safety-critical systems and agile development through this lens in order to map potential benefits, challenges, and solution candidates for guiding future research.Comment: Accepted at Euromicro Conf. on Software Engineering and Advanced Applications 2018, Prague, Czech Republi