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Federal Highway Administration Research and Technology
Coordinating, Developing, and Delivering Highway Transportation Innovations

Report
This report is an archived publication and may contain dated technical, contact, and link information
Publication Number: FHWA-RD-04-080
Date: September 2004

Software Reliability: A Federal Highway Administration Preliminary Handbook

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U.S. Department of Transportation
Federal Highway Administration
Research, Development, and Technology
Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center
6300 Georgetown Pike
McLean, VA 22101-2296


Foreword

A goal of the Federal Highway Administration's (FHWA) Advanced Safety Research Program is to help highway engineers, software developers, and project mangers understand software verification and validation (V&V) and produce reliable, safe software.

This handbook presents new software V&V techniques to address special needs related to highway software. Some of the techniques are:

  • Wrapping (using embedded code to make a program self-verifying).
  • SpecChekTM, a V&V tool to check software with its specifications.
  • Real-time computation of error propagation.
  • Phased introduction of new software to minimize failures.

The results of this research will be useful to transportation engineers, software managers and developers, and safety professionals who are involved in creating highway-related software.

Michael Trentacoste
Director, Office of Safety R&D

Notice

This document is disseminated under the sponsorship of the U.S. Department of Transportation in the interest of information exchange. The U.S. Government assumes no liability for the use of the information contained in this document.

The U.S. Government does not endorse products or manufacturers. Trademarks or manufacturers' names appear in this report only because they are considered essential to the objective of the document.

Quality Assurance Statement

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) provides high-quality information to serve Government, industry, and the public in a manner that promotes public understanding. Standards and policies are used to ensure and maximize the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of its information. FHWA periodically reviews quality issues and adjusts its programs and processes to ensure continuous quality improvement.


Technical Report Documentation Page

1. Report No.
FHWA-HRT-04-080

2. Government Accession No.

3. Recipient's Catalog No.

4. Software Reliability: A Federal Highway Administration Preliminary Handbook and Subtitle
Software Reliability: A Preliminary Handbook

5. Report Date
September 2004

6. Performing Organization Code

7. Author(s)
Rodger Knaus, Hamid Aougab, Naim Bentahar

8. Performing Organization Report No.

9. Performing Organization Name and Address
Instant Recall, Inc.
8180 Greensboro Drive, Suite 700
McLean, VA 22102
www.irecall.com

10. Work Unit No. (TRAIS)

11. Contract or Grant No.
FHWA-RD-DTFH61-02-F-00154

12. Sponsoring Agency Name and Address Office of Safety Research
and Development
Federal Highway Administration
6300 Georgetown Pike
McLean, VA 22101-2296

13. Type of Report and Period Covered Final Report February 2000-June 2001

14. Sponsoring Agency Code

15. Supplementary Notes
Contracting Officer's Technical Representative (COTR): Milton Mills, Office of Safety Research and Development

16. Abstract

The overall objective of this handbook is to provide a reference to aid the highway engineer, software developer, and project manager in software verification and validation (V&V), and in producing reliable software. Specifically, the handbook:

  • Demonstrates the need for V&V of highway-related software.
  • Introduces the important software V&V concepts.
  • Defines the special V&V problems for highway-related software.
  • Provides a reference to several new software V&V techniques developed under this and earlier related projects to address the special needs of highway-related software:
    • Wrapping, i.e., the use of embedded code to make a program self-verifying.
    • SpecChekTM, a V&V tool to check software with its specifications.
    • Real-time computation of roundoff and other numerical errors.
    • Phased introduction of new software to minimize failures.
  • Helps the highway engineer, software developer, and project manager integrate software V&V into the development of new software and retrofit V&V into existing software.

The handbook emphasizes techniques that address the special needs of highway software, and provides pointers to information on standard V&V tools and techniques of the software industry.

17. Key Words
Software Reliability, Roundoff Errors, Floating Points Errors, Software Verification and Validation, Software Testing, SpecChek

18. Distribution Statement
No restrictions. This document is available to the public through the National Technical Information Service, Springfield, VA 22161.

19. Security Classif. (of this report)
Unclassified

20. Security Classif. (of this page)
Unclassified

21. No. of Pages
85

22. Price




TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 7. NUMERICAL RELIABILITY

CHAPTER 8. TOOLS FOR SOFTWARE RELIABILITY

APPENDIX A. WRAPPING SOURCE CODE

APPENDIX B. ROUNDOFF ERRORS IN LARGE SUM

REFERENCES

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES



LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: The V (U) Model for SDLC

Figure 2: Simplified V Model with Handbook Techniques

Figure 3: Model of SpecChek Method

Figure 4: Checking Software with SpecChek



LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Formula for Addition

Table 2: Formula for Subtraction

Table 3: Formula for Multiplication

Table 4: Formula for Division

Table 5: Order Errors for Addition

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Federal Highway Administration | 1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE | Washington, DC 20590 | 202-366-4000
Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center | 6300 Georgetown Pike | McLean, VA | 22101