Research on the avionic software quality evaluation based on the WSR methodology

With the development of avionics, software plays a more and more important role. However, software evaluation lags behind, compared with software testing. The main reasons are the difficulties of software measurement and the complexity of human factors. ´Wuli-Shili-Renli´(WSR) methodology is proposed by Professor Gu Ji-fa during his cooperation project about system engineering in the System Engineering Research Center of the University of Hull, UK, in 1994, which is a new academic point of view combining the advantages of Chinese philosophy and western philosophy. Based on WSR methodology, an avionic software evaluation method put forward by the paper is divided into three phrases, which are the Wuli, Shili and Renli. In Wuli phrase, we pay more attention to the nature of the whole evaluation such as the evaluated software information. In the Shili phrase, we focus on how to arrange the evaluation; In the Renli Phrase human factors will be mainly discussed. In the end, an example is given to demonstrate how the method is applied in an altimeter software evaluation project from Software Testing & Evaluation Centre of China Aviation Industry Corporation I&II.