This paper presents the industrial use of a program proof method based on CAVEAT (C program prover developed by the commissariat à l'énergie atomique) in the verification process of a safety critical avionics program.Avionics programs size and complexity ever increase. This affects the most critical ones, like flight control programs, as well. Avionics programs must conform DO178B standard, leading to spend about 60 % of the development time in verification, for the most critical of them (level A). Verification activities consist of readings, intellectual (human) analyses and test.In the 'ever increasing' context mentioned above, the cost of all kinds of verification tends to get higher, in order to keep the dependability of the programs at the same (high) level.The main concern is about tests. Indeed, most of the verification time is spent in testing and one can predict a dramatic augmentation of the test effort if nothing is done, specially for critical avionics programs. The main concern, here, is about the coverage of the tests: how to face the augmentation of complexity by this non exhaustive verification technique?Abstract:

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