Objectives Conformity Argument Patterns for Software Testing Process in DO-178C

Safety-critical software has been widely used in many fields. As the specific requirement of safety-critical software is preventing catastrophes, this kind of software must comply with its relevant safety standards. But now it does not have any effective ways to construct objectives conformity argument model for standards. By analyzing the features of objectives of software testing process in DO-178C, an objective conformity argument pattern description framework based on GSN is proposed, and these patterns are described through four fields: the problems that we need to solve, the specification for the solution, the approach to use them and the effect after using them. At the same time, some extensions for safety case patterns are proposed to describe the objectives conformity argument patterns. On this basis, three objectives conformity argument patterns based on software testing process in DO-178C are proposed, which are code-requirement conformity argument pattern, test coverage of requirements argument pattern and test coverage of structure argument pattern. At the same time, the instantiated method to build the objectives conformity argument structure for a specific program based on these patterns is proposed. People can construct objectives conformity argument structure for objectives of software testing process in DO-178C effectively through the proposed way. At last, one case study, which is an embedded real-time operating system, indicates that the objectives conformity argument patterns proposed here are useful and effective.