Graphics Shader Testing for On-Board Visualization System of Civil Aircraft

Graphics Shader Testing for On-Board Visualization System of Civil Aircraft

연구 분야: Verification

학회: Programming and Computer Software

Software package of a modern civil aircraft operates under the control of a real-time operating system (RTOS). This technology is critical from the safety viewpoint and must be certified for use. An integral part of the RTOS is the graphics component. Existing aviation applications use graphics shaders that are to be compiled before execution. But a shader compiler written in C++ cannot be certified. Therefore, we propose an approach in which the compiler is not used in the on-board software. It compiles shaders in advance, and during operation they are loaded as a program binary object. Thus, certification of the shader compiler is replaced by testing the program object created by it. We developed a hardware and software suite designed for testing the compiler that is independent of a specific target platform. Based on the analysis of aviation applications, a set of tests was developed that allows us to check the correctness of all shader operations used in civil aviation applications. Thus, we have found and successfully implemented a practical solution to the problem of the impossibility of certifying the shader compiler, which made it possible to include shaders in the certified software of the civil aircraft onboard equipment.