Real-time software failure characterization

An overview of a series of studies aimed at characterizing the fundamentals of the software failure process is presented. The focus is on the development of three independent implementations of an aerospace guidance and control software (GCS) application. The study addresses three objectives related to the development of a credible software reliability assessment methodology: description, development method effectiveness, and fundamentals. Previous studies have provided insight about the software failure process. Different faults were found to produce errors at widely varying rates. Program error rates were found to follow a log-linear trend with respect to the number of faults corrected. Some of the faults were found to interact with each other in concealing and revealing ways. Points in the input space that cause a fault to produce errors can tend to cluster and form regions called error crystals.<>