Software Reliability: A Preliminary Handbook

PUBLICATION NO. FHWA-HRT-04-080

September 2004

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U.S. Department of Transportation
Federal Highway Administration
Research, Development, and Technology
Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center
6300 Georgetown Pike
McLean, VA 22101-2296

Foreword

A goal of the Federal Highway Administration's (FHWA) Advanced Safety Research Program is to help highway engineers, software developers, and project mangers understand software verification and validation (V&V) and produce reliable, safe software.

This handbook presents new software V&V techniques to address special needs related to highway software. Some of the techniques are:

Wrapping (using embedded code to make a program self-verifying).
SpecChek^TM, a V&V tool to check software with its specifications.
Real-time computation of error propagation.
Phased introduction of new software to minimize failures.

The results of this research will be useful to transportation engineers, software managers and developers, and safety professionals who are involved in creating highway-related software.

Michael Trentacoste
Director, Office of Safety R&D

Notice:

This document is disseminated under the sponsorship of the Department of Transportation in the interest of information exchange. The United States Government assumes no liability for the contents or the use thereof. The report does not constitute a standard, specification, or regulation.

The United States Government does not endorse products or manufacturers. Trade and manufacturers’ names appear in this report because they are considered essential to the object of the document.

Quality Assurance Statement:

FHWA provides high-quality information to serve Government, industry, and the public in a manner that promotes public understanding. Standards and policies are used to ensure and maximize the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of its information. FHWA periodically reviews quality issues and adjusts its programs and processes to ensure continuous quality improvement.

Technical Report Documentation Page

1. Report No. FHWA-HRT-04-080	2. Government Accession No.		3. Recipient's Catalog No.
4. Title and Subtitle Software Reliability: A Preliminary Handbook			5. Report Date September 2004
			6. Performing Organization Code
7. Author(s) Rodger Knaus, Hamid Aougab, Naim Bentahar			8. Performing Organization Report No.
9. Performing Organization Name and Address Instant Recall, Inc. 8180 Greensboro Drive, Suite 700 McLean, VA 22102 www.irecall.com			10. Work Unit No. (TRAIS)
			11. Contract or Grant No. FHWA-RD-DTFH61-02-F-00154
12. Sponsoring Agency Name and Address Office of Safety Research and Development Federal Highway Administration 6300 Georgetown Pike McLean, VA 22101-2296			13. Type of Report and Period Covered Final Report February 2000-June 2001
			14. Sponsoring Agency Code
15. Supplementary Notes Contracting Officer's Technical Representative (COTR): Milton Mills, Office of Safety Research and Development
16. Abstract The overall objective of this handbook is to provide a reference to aid the highway engineer, software developer, and project manager in software verification and validation (V&V), and in producing reliable software. Specifically, the handbook: Demonstrates the need for V&V of highway-related software. Introduces the important software V&V concepts. Defines the special V&V problems for highway-related software. Provides a reference to several new software V&V techniques developed under this and earlier related projects to address the special needs of highway-related software: Wrapping, i.e., the use of embedded code to make a program self-verifying. SpecChek^TM, a V&V tool to check software with its specifications. Real-time computation of roundoff and other numerical errors. Phased introduction of new software to minimize failures. Helps the highway engineer, software developer, and project manager integrate software V&V into the development of new software and retrofit V&V into existing software. The handbook emphasizes techniques that address the special needs of highway software, and provides pointers to information on standard V&V tools and techniques of the software industry.
17. Key Words Software Reliability, Roundoff Errors, Floating Points Errors, Software Verification and Validation, Software Testing, SpecChek		18. Distribution Statement No restrictions. This document is available to the public through the National Technical Information Service, Springfield, VA 22161.
19. Security Classif. (of this report) Unclassified	20. Security Classif. (of this page) Unclassified		21. No. of Pages 85	22. Price

Software Reliability: A Preliminary Handbook

Foreword

Technical Report Documentation Page

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