Resources

References for Developing/Analyzing Safety-Critical Software

The System Safety Society publishes the System Safety Analysis Handbook. It includes specific information on Software Safety.

The IEEE, and the IEEE Computer Society in particular, have a wealth of resources. Standards, articles, magazines, etc. related to software testing, analysis, and development can be found at their sites.

MIL-STD-882E Final 2012-05-11 – This is the latest version of the Military Standard on System Safety. It restored much of the information on Software Safety which was removed in 882D in Feb 2000.

Software System Safety Handbook (8.0MB) – Produced by the Joint Services Software Safety Committee (Army, Navy, Air Force, NASA and others) – an excellent reference.

STANAG 4404 ChecklistNATO Standardization Agreement (STANAG), Safety Design Requirements and Guidelines for Munitions Related Safety Critical Computing Systems – Although this STANAG was never ratified, it’s still used by the US DoD. This is a great list of things to do or avoid doing in safety-critical software.

Dozen Problems – List of a dozen potential problems in real-time embedded systems software, many of which aren’t caught by traditional testing methods.

Dozen RT Parameters – List of a dozen items required to adequately analyze real-time multi-tasking software.