Characterizing Verification Tools through Coding Error Candidates Reported in Space Flight Software

Mastering the continuously increasing amount of software requires identification of more efficient strategies for software verification. Currently, fault coverage is only indirectly addressed, e.g. by code coverage. The idea as presented in this paper is to get a better understanding of fault coverage by a systematic classification of software fault types, derivation of footprints of verification tools regarding coverage of such fault types, and recording of required effort. A number of issues regarding fault identification and classification are discussed in this context.