Reducing the Cost Impact of V&V | Guillaume Brat | Talks at Google

TL;DR

NASA is working on reducing the cost of verification and validation (V&V) for flight critical systems in response to industry concerns about the increasing expenses of software development.

Transcript

[MUSIC PLAYING] MARY: Thank you all for coming to our latest NASA at Google Talk. I'm very, very pleased to welcome Guillaume Brat, who is going to talk today about reducing the cost of impact of V&V for flight critical systems. As you can see. GUILLAUME BRAT: It's a mouthful. MARY: And it is. It is. So is your bio. So Guillaume comes for us from U... Read More

Key Insights

• 🥺 The cost of V&V for flight critical systems has become a significant concern for industry, leading to research efforts by NASA to address this issue.
• 🫷 NASA's research is focused on pushing V&V to the left side of the development process, incorporating methods such as statistical learning, static analysis, and model checking.
• 🥅 The goal is to not only reduce costs, but also improve safety by addressing risks earlier in the development process and ensuring the effectiveness of verification techniques.

Questions & Answers

Q: What is the main driver behind NASA's research on reducing the cost of V&V for flight critical systems?

The high cost of V&V, specifically in software development, has been a concern raised by manufacturers and subcontractors, leading to a mandate for NASA to address this issue.

Q: What is the role of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in this research?

The FAA plays a significant role in the certification of flight critical systems. NASA is working closely with the FAA to ensure that the tools and techniques developed are acceptable for certification and can be effectively used by certifiers.

Q: How is NASA addressing the challenges of verifying autonomous systems?

NASA is working on developing tools and techniques that will allow for the verification and validation of autonomous systems. This includes addressing the challenges of modeling the system and the environment, as well as the need for runtime monitoring and assurance in real time.

Q: How is NASA addressing the issue of unknown unknowns in the context of autonomy?

While it is impossible to predict all possible risks and scenarios, NASA is working on creating a live and evolving safety case that can continually address new risks as they emerge. This includes reasoning about risks that may not have been identified during the design phase.

Summary & Key Takeaways

• NASA has been tasked with addressing the high cost of V&V for flight critical systems in civil aviation, as reported by manufacturers and subcontractors.

• The research conducted by NASA is focused on developing new methods and models for assuring safety in flight critical systems, particularly in the areas of control systems and spacecraft software.

• The goal is to push V&V to the left side of the development process, addressing risks at the requirements, design, and coding phases, rather than relying solely on testing at the end of the process.