Software validation and preventive software quality assurance for metrology

Abstract

As everywhere in technological development, IT has become an indispensable part of metrology. Modern measuring instrumentsrely on embedded software. Data obtained through measurement are transferred via communication networks and processed further bysoftware systems. This development has led to increasingly complex and distributed metrological functions. This complexity has different facets: it can not only enhance the functionality of a measuring system itself including self-checking facilities, but also the distribution and transmission of measurement data and the methods used for data analysis. One can say that IT opens up a new world of concepts that essentially contribute to the development of metrology. In this, different fields of information technology have to be taken into account, extending from software engineering, computational methods, databases, communication technology, and security techniques to knowledge-based systems. This chapter of the book gives a survey of the software validation and software engineering methods in metrology. For a better illustration, the accompanying DVD presents two case studies of validation procedures performed at PTB. Finally, an outlook on future issues is given.