Safer marine and offshore software with formal-verification-based guidelines

As the development of ship software systems has followed the growth curve of digital technologies, Marine & Offshore assessors like BUREAU VERITAS, are lacking dedicated software standards and tools which are available to other industrial sectors like railways or aeronautics. Indeed, in this field of Marine & Offshore, software systems are seen as black-boxes, i.e. only verified through system testing with minimal requirements specific to software development. Given the potential effect impact of software failures on human, strategic, economic, and/or environmental aspects, the current approach is inadequate. As a result of this, BUREAU VERITAS has developed pragmatic guideline for the development and assessment of marine & offshore verification software which meet the rigorous safety standards required for this industry. These guidelines focus on development processes and the use of efficient tools to verify software through a white-box approach. In this context BUREAU VERITAS has partnered with CEA-LIST who is industry leader in applied formal verification techniques. This paper is supplemented by a project case study where these guidelines have been applied to the review of a critical ship software system owned by SIREHNA (a subsidiary of DCNS).