GE Research to Develop New Model That Would Accelerate Code Verification Processes

GE Research will lead a $10.5 million project under the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to create an advanced assurance model that would accelerate software certification for critical military and industrial systems. The initiative is under DARPA’s Automated Rapid Certification of Software program.

Under the project, GE Research will reduce the time and cost to re-certify programs that have undergone code changes. It currently takes around a year and could cost millions of dollars to re-certify programs, and it often uses manual and human-centric processes to complete.

GE Research will work with GE Aviation Systems, Galois and Gardtime Federal on the project, Nextgov reported.

Kit Siu, a principal engineer on GE Research’s High Assurance Systems Team, said the best outcome for the model is to complete software updates seamlessly within hours. She explained that ideally, coders would show up at the test site to run their code, propose software changes based on previous runs, make changes to the Rapid Assurance Curation Kit that is included in the ARCOS program and have RACK generate a report within the day.

Researchers will use artificial intelligence, semantic technology, natural language processing, data analytics and other advanced technologies to achieve the desired outcome. According to Siu, using advanced technologies will allow the solution to identify flaws, lapses, weaknesses and other issues within the system being tested.

The model will also use distributed cryptography to enhance the security of digital assets.

GE Research plans to demonstrate a model for a complex aerospace system.