Abstract

Abstract—Assurance Based Development (ABD) is a novel approach to the synergistic construction of critical software systems and their assurance arguments. In ABD, the need for assurance drives a unique process synthesis mechanism that results in a detailed process for building both software and an argument demonstrating its fitness for use in given operating contexts. In this paper, we introduce the ABD process synthesis mechanism. A key element of ABD process synthesis is the success argument, an argument which documents developers’ rationale for believing that the development effort in progress will result in a system that demonstrably meets an acceptable balance of all stakeholder goals. Such goals include safety and security requirements for systems using the software as a component and time and budget constraints. We also present the details of a case study in which we used ABD to develop the control software for a prototype artificial heart pump. Keywords-software dependability; software assurance; assurance arguments; safety-critical systems; software processes I.

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