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Has anyone successfully used Rhapsody in a DO-178 avionics environment? That is, working with the FAA/DER process to provide artifacts to them and have them approved. Since it is my understanding that Rhapsody isn't a certifiable MDD tool, I was curious if there were other mitigating factors.

If you were successful so, what steps did you take in order to be able to accomplish this?

Thanks for any feedback and insights.

ufukgun
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JustADude
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3 Answers3

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I have used Rhapsody on a project that was developed in accordance with (but not certified) to DO-178B level D. The requirements were managed in DOORS and linked into Rhapsody using the Rhapsody Gateway tool, which worked reasonably well. This was important as traceability is a key part of 178B.

The software was modelled in Rhapsody and the code then generated manually. Manual code generation was chosen as auto-generation of code would then require Rhapsody to be qualified as a development tool to comply with 178B. I don't know if IBM provide any 178B certification for Rhapsody.

Verification of the software against requirements was performed using a bespoke test tool, and for this we had to perform some significant testing of the tool in order to qualify it as a verification tool.

Your question is quite hard to answer as you don't include any information on what level of 178B you are working to, what tools you are using/planning to use (other than Rhapsody), or whether you are intending to auto generate code, etc.

Hope this is of some help.

Paulski73
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  • Thank you for your feedback. Did you use the UML/SysML within Rhapsody as LLR or HLR or both? – JustADude Dec 06 '17 at 14:26
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    We used them for both. – Paulski73 Dec 06 '17 at 16:48
  • Paulski73 thanks for the info. How do you handle UML not necessarily being able to fully represent the characteristics, objectives and activities for LLR and HLR? Do you supplement with textual Lots? Thanks again. – JustADude Dec 06 '17 at 20:11
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I have experience using Rhapsody C++ for DO-178B Level A/B compliant project.

Auto generated code is verified in accordance with the coverage requirements, including MC/DC coverage, for the proper level. Since the generated code are fully verified with rigorous static/dynamic tests and manual reviews, as if they were hand coded, the Rhapsody tool qualification was not mandatory.

We have put much effort in customizing Rhapsody code generation properties to generate only the needed code such as ctor/dtors and get/setters, and to avoid library functions which are not deterministic or the ones with dynamic memory allocations.

We were able to fully utilize round-trip engineering so that the Rhapsody model files, not the code, are version-controlled since the model contains all the code.

Rhapsody UML should be considered for developing reusable and portable software architecture.

Keugyeol
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  • Thank you for your feedback. Did you use the UML/SysML within Rhapsody as LLR or HLR or both? – JustADude Dec 06 '17 at 14:25
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    Categorizing LLR/HLRs seems quite subjective so I am not sure it would apply to your case, but we had systems requirements documents we treated as HLRs, and software requirements docs as LLRs. In this regard, the Rhapsody UML was used in the development of LLRs and following design works. – Keugyeol Dec 06 '17 at 23:07
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Rhapsody is being used in our Level A/C/D project with Arinc 653. Since Output of Rhapsody(Auto code generators) are being verified.

Hence, Qualifying Rhapsody is not necessary. Rhapsody gives advantages in Traceability and generation or modifying Test Scripts by updating just "Tags" field.

So the entire Test script or traces in Test script need not to be modified.

JustADude
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Rohitha Nagaraju
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