Resolving requirements discovery in testing and operations
This paper describes the results of an investigation into requirements discovery during testing and operations.
Engineering topics
Publications and source records attributed to Lutz, R. R..
This paper describes the results of an investigation into requirements discovery during testing and operations.
The identification of patterns of software defect data yields insights into improving the quality of both operational and future spacecraft. This paper describes the results of applying this technique to both post-launch and pre-launch spacecraft. It then describes four key challenges that remain to achieving fuller utilization of defect analysis in future systems.
This report describes both the research techniques and the application results from the analysis of safety-critical software anomalies recorded post-launch on seven spacecraft: Galileo, Mars Global Surveyor, Cassini/Huygens, Deep Space 1, Mars Climate Orbiter, Mars Polar Lander, and Stardust.
This paper reports the results of a small study of requirements changes to the onboard software of three spacecraft subsequent to launch. Only those requirement changes that resulted from post-launch anoma-lies (i.e., during operations) were of interest here, since the goal was to better understand the relation-ship between critical anomalies during operations and how safety-critical requirements evolve. The results of the study were surprising in that anomaly-driven, post-launch requirements changes were rarely due to previous requirements having been incorrect. Instead, changes involved new requirements (1) for the software to handle rare events or (2) for the software to compensate for hardware failures or limitations. The prevalence of new requirements as a result of post-launch anomalies suggests a need for increased requirements-engineering support of maintenance activities in these systems. The results also confirm both the difficulty and the benefits of pursuing requirements completeness, especially in terms of fault tolerance, during development of critical systems.
Four areas of overlapping interest in joint industrial/academic symposia on high assurance systems are proposed as meriting additional attention.
This paper report experience from how a project engaged in the process of requirements analysis for evolutionary builds can reuse the formally specified design model produced for a similar, earlier project in the same domain.
This paper provides a Safety Checklist for use during the analysis of software requirements for spacecraft and other safety-critical, embedded systems.