Software and hardware certification of safety-critical avionic systems: A comparison study

• The overview of software and hardware characteristics is presented in this paper.
• We reviewed DO-178B and DO-254 in terms of diverse perspectives.
• We reviewed coordinated approaches for software/hardware certification processes.

To ensure the safety of avionic systems, civil avionic software and hardware regulated by certification authorities must be certified based on applicable standards (e.g., DO-178B and DO-254). The overall safety integrity of an avionic system, comprising software and hardware, should be considered at the system level. Thus, software and hardware components should be planned, developed and certified in a unified, harmonized manner to ensure the integral safety of the entire avionic system. One of the reasons for the high development costs of avionic systems complying with standards may be a lack of sufficient understanding of how to employ these standards efficiently. Therefore, it is important to understand the similarities and differences between DO-178B and DO-254 to effectively manage the processes required by these standards, to minimize cost, and to ultimately ensure the safety of the entire avionic system. Thus, the goal of this paper is to compare various aspects of DO-178B and DO-254 comprehensively. The paper may serve as a useful supplementary material for the practitioner to understand the rationales behind and the differences between two main standards used in avionic industries.