A growing number of stakeholders are stating a desire to reap the benefits of using Object-Oriented (OO) technology in military avionics. Whilst a number of suppliers have already used OO programming languages and techniques to develop non-critical equipment, many envisage using OO software in high integrity avionics systems in the near future.

There is a concern, however, that established OO practices are, on there own, not suitable for the development of what may be safety critical systems. It is believed by many that OO developments must be managed appropriately if they are to deliver software of the necessary rigour. Many past strategies have employed the use of coding guidelines and language subsets to manage, in part, the development of dependable OO software systems.

The Motor Industry Software Reliability Association (MISRA www.misra.org.uk) have a pedigree for developing such guidelines. The MISRA C Guidelines have been used extensively to develop software for use in safety related and safety critical systems. The growing demand for the use of OO software in this way led MISRA to set up a C++ Working Group, comprising of suppliers, tool vendors, academics and domain [including military aerospace] experts.

To promulgate the work done over the past two years by the MISRA C++ Working Group, the ASSC hosted an afternoon seminar at Abbeywood on 17 January 2007. The event, which was well attended, gave the opportunity for MISRA to present how far they had advanced with the C++ Coding Guidelines and for industry and the MoD to give their opinion on what they believed to be the key issues with using C++ in high integrity systems.

For any more information please e-mail: era.assc@cobham.com or call: +44 (0) 1372 367141