Analysing and Visualizing large Aerospace Software Systems

Abstract

In aerospace, software is often safety-critical and small errors can lead to serious failures. Therefore, it is important for space missions to understand the quality and reliability of the software used and to assess risks through its integration into the overall system. To make the understanding of a complex software system more accessible a set of tools that analyze and visualize relations within the system could be introduced. Such a software analysis and visualization tool has to meet challenging requirements to be suited for the specific needs of users in the aerospace domain. To fulfill these specific requirements and to provide an intuitive way to understand the software projects with software visualization, we use a user-centered design process to design and implement a suitable software analysis and visualization tool; in doing so, we pursue the principle of rapid prototyping.