Verification of Flight Critical Systems

The trend towards fly-by-wire flight controls, with ever increasing complexity, creates a heavy burden of proof-of-safety on the systems designer. Schedule pressures often compromise testing and generate increased risk. In this paper, we will present a concept that improves cost, schedule, and ultimately safety for future fly-by-wire control system development. The value of a tool that enhances the integration, verification, and validation (IV&V) processes will be addressed. The approach to developing a fully automated IV&V capability will be described. Finally, the results of the proof-of-concept demonstration on the X-31 program will be summarized.