Interferometer software development at JPL: using software engineering to reduce integration headaches

This paper describes some of the software engineering practices that are being used by the Realtime Interferometer Control Systems Testbed (RICST) project at JPL to address integration and integratability issues.New documentation and review techniques based on formal methods permit early identification of potential interface problems. An incremental life cycle improves the manageability of the software development process. A 'cleanroom mindset' reduces the number of defects that have to be removed during integration and test. And team ownership of work products permits the project to grow while providing a variety of opportunities to team members. This paper presents data, including software metrics and analysis, from the first several incremental deliveries developed by the RICST project.