2 Cost effectiveness of formal methods in the development of avionics systems at AEROSPATIALE
François PILARSKI · INCOSE International Symposium · 1999
Abstract AEROSPATIALE has been using formal methods since the early 80's to develop part of the embedded systems, and more specifically most of the avionics systems. During the last two decades, such an approach has demonstrated significant cost savings. This paper presents some aspects of this approach and focuses more precisely on the way it has helped in reducing embedded system development and maintenance costs. This first section of this paper is devoted to a general description of the overall context and it gives some elements of history. The second section summarizes the benefits AEROSPATIALE has found in using SAO first, and now SCADE, and constitutes an attempt to synthesize the properties and characteristics that make a formal method efficient (at AEROSPATIALE). The third section summarizes some aspects of formal methods, which have not been extensively used yet but which are likely to induce extra cost reduction, namely proof techniques.