RTCA DO-178C, guideline in the aviation industry for the development of airworthiness of aviation software mandates the analysis of data and control coupling using requirement-based testing for safety-critical avionics software (Refer the Table 1). DO-178C defines Control Coupling as the manner or degree by which one software component influences the execution of another software component. Data Coupling as the dependence of a software component on data not exclusively under the control of that software component.
The intent of the analysis of data coupling and control coupling is to ensure that each module/component are interacting with each other as expected. That is, the intent is to show that the software modules/components affect one another in the ways in which the software designer intended and do not affect one another in ways in which they were not intended, thus resulting in unplanned, anomalous, or erroneous behavior. The measurements and assurance should be conducted using requirements-based testing of the integrated components on the final software build in order to ensure that the interactions and dependencies are correct, the coverage is complete, and the objective is satisfied.
The proposed method involves using software execution and data trace information to derive data and control coupling insights from requirement-based test execution. This technique focuses on analyzing how software components interact during actual program execution. By capturing and examining execution traces and data flows, it can identify the dependencies and interactions between different software modules.