Industry Solution

Polarion ALM for
Aerospace & Defense

Full traceability from system-level requirements to airworthiness certification evidence — supporting DO-178C, DO-254, and ARP4754A for commercial and defense programmes.

DO-178C DO-254 ARP 4754A MIL-STD-498 FACE / SOSA AS9100
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DO-178C certification chain — Polarion ALM

Multi-level certification.
Decades-long product life.

Aerospace and defense programmes operate under the most rigorous certification regimes in engineering. DO-178C requires full traceability from high-level requirements through low-level requirements to source code and test coverage — and this must be maintained across a product life that can span 30+ years.

At the same time, defense programmes demand controlled, auditable modification processes across complex contractor ecosystems. A single undocumented change can invalidate qualification status.

Multi-Level Requirements Traceability

DO-178C requires HLR-to-LLR-to-source-code-to-test-coverage links. Manual maintenance across thousands of items is error-prone and unsustainable.

Long Baseline Retention

Exact configurations must be reproducible for re-qualification, modification approval, and FAA/EASA regulatory correspondence across product lifetimes of decades.

Problem Report Configuration Control

Software Configuration Management under DO-178C requires every problem report, change request, and fix to be tracked with impact analysis — across concurrent baselines.

DER / Certification Authority Data

Preparing the Software Accomplishment Summary and Plan for Software Aspects of Certification from disconnected artefacts adds months to certification programmes.

Built for the rigour of civil and defense certification

Polarion manages the complete DO-178C artefact set — from PSAC and SDP through HLR/LLR, SCM records, and SAS — in a single governed repository.

DO-178C Requirements Hierarchy

Separate work item types for High-Level Requirements, Low-Level Requirements, and Source Code stubs with enforced bidirectional traceability links at each level. Coverage analysis is always live.

Software Level Configuration

Workflows configured per Software Level (A through D) enforce the activities and independence requirements mandated by DO-178C. Level A items cannot bypass review gates.

Baseline & Configuration Management

Immutable collection baselines capture exact product state at every milestone. Any baseline can be reproduced, compared, and submitted to the DER or certification authority years after the fact.

Problem Report & Change Management

Structured Problem Report workflow with impact analysis on all affected HLRs, LLRs, and tests. Every change is traceable to its originating PR, approval authority, and regression test record.

ARP4754A Systems Engineering

System-level safety assessment and development assurance level allocation is managed in the same tool as software requirements — keeping Functional Hazard Assessment links live throughout development.

Certification Evidence Packages

Generate Software Accomplishment Summary (SAS) and certification data packages directly from live Polarion data. Evidence is always current — not assembled under schedule pressure.

The full aerospace certification stack

DO-178C
Software Considerations in Airborne SystemsDefines software development objectives and evidence for airborne software certification across Levels A–D. Supersedes DO-178B.
DO-254
Design Assurance for Airborne Electronic HardwareCounterpart to DO-178C for complex electronic hardware (FPGAs, ASICs). Requires requirements, design, and verification traceability at DAL A–E.
ARP 4754A
Guidelines for Development of Civil Aircraft SystemsCovers the development assurance process at the aircraft and system level, including FHA, PASA, and safety assessment integration with DO-178C.
MIL-STD-498
Software Development and DocumentationUS DoD standard for software development, covering SRS, SDD, test plans, and verification that maps directly to Polarion work item and document types.
FACE / SOSA
Open Standards for Defense SystemsFuture Airborne Capability Environment (FACE) and Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA) require software component conformance profiles traceable through development.
AS9100
Aerospace Quality Management SystemAS9100 QMS requirements for design control, configuration management, risk management, and first-article inspection are supported through Polarion workflows and document management.

Certify with confidence.
Maintain for decades.

Whether you're pursuing initial DO-178C certification or managing a mature airborne software baseline, we know how Polarion needs to be configured to satisfy your DER and certification authority.

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