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Over the past few decades, advanced methods have been developed for the analysis of digital systems using mathematical reasoning, i.e., formal logic. These methods are supported by sophisticated software tools that can be used to perform analysis far beyond what is practically achievable using “paper and pencil” analysis. In December 2011, RTCA published RTCA DO-178C [1] along with a set of technical supplements including RTCA DO-333 [2] which provides guidance on the use of formal methods towards the certification of airborne software. Such methods have the potential to reduce the cost of verification by using formal analysis instead of conventional test-based methods to produce a portion of the verification evidence required for certification.

This paper presents the steps involved in developing safety critical embedded control software for aerospace applications for the control of propulsion system. The propulsion system control system must be designed to meet a basic set of operability requirements provide the expected performance without exceeding design limitations. Stringent configuration management and high level of coding standards in the code are required to meet the safety critical nature of propulsion control system. The various stages of control system development are requirement analysis, configuration management & traceability analysis, control system analysis, control system design, code generation, and verification and validation. Many of these steps are performed manually and using real hardware systems, resulting in high development cost and long development time with little or no re-use.