Standardization News

“This new standard is designed to help manufacturers and others show evidence to government aviation agencies that software is dependable, which is part of proving overall airworthiness,” says ASTM member Stephen Cook, an engineering fellow with Northrop Grumman Corporations’ Aerospace Systems Office of Independent Airworthiness. “This standard is built on best practices used in aviation and other industries, including some already in use by manufacturers of unmanned aircraft systems,” noted Cook, who led the task group that developed the standard.

The new standard helps determine the level of rigor needed to establish dependability based on operational risks associated with a sUAS and addresses:
•    organizational controls in place during software development;
•    use of the software in the system, including its contribution to overall system safety and security;
•    metrics related to assessing code;
•    techniques and tools related to code review;
•    external assessment of organizational quality assurance; and,
•    software testing.

According to Cook, the standard will:
•    provide a means to establish dependability of externally-developed, commercial, “off-the-shelf” software for critical functions;
•    support agile software development and modern tools for internally-developed software;
•    address software security concerns for sUAS that are highly networked; and,
•    be compatible with frequent software updates in response to consumer needs.

The new standard (F3201, Practice for Software Dependability for sUAS) was developed by ASTM’s committee on unmanned aircraft systems (F38).

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Technical Contact: Stephen P. Cook, Northrop Grumman tel +1.919.525.4505 
ASTM Staff Contact: Mary Mikolajewski, tel +1.610.832.9678